


How (Not) to Meet Your Soulmate

by Scarlet_Ribbons



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: ...and angst, AU-Soulmates, Anal Sex, Bad First Impressions, Cynical!Jensen, Fluff, Glasses!Jensen, Homelessness, Hurt Jared Padalecki, M/M, author!Jensen, mentions of child prostitution, thief!jared
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:36:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4618740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Ribbons/pseuds/Scarlet_Ribbons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen can't believe that, despite the 7.125 billion people with potential inhabiting the world, he's still seeing everything in grayscale. Dani and Chris are enjoying HD color vision while he's stuck in a world of black and white, just waiting for his soulmate to wander in.</p><p>But his soulmate doesn't just wander in; his soulmate steals his heart. Along with his credit cards and all his money.</p><p>Just his luck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Green Like Grass

If one more person asks Jensen about his status with his soulmate, he might actually start screaming. And he'll carry on like a banshee, probably until someone shoots him with a tranquilizer or something to get him to calm the fuck down. But it's not like Jensen will be able to help it; why are people so goddamn nosy? It's not like it's Melissa-from-the-office's business whether Jensen has company beneath his bedsheets, and it's certainly not Tom-the-postman's duty to ask him, on occasion, what color the grass is.

And Jensen's not an  _idiot_. He knows grass is supposed to be a lush emerald, and those lucky bastards who have found their soulmates often tell him that the color of his eyes is quite similar to that of grass. It's just that Jensen can't see the luxurious green of the grass, because Jensen can only see in monochrome. Not that he minds monochrome. That shit is great, really. All... Black. And white. And grey. Very dynamic. And it isn't as though no one can share his struggle; many people he knows have similarly not found their soulmates, and aren't able to see color, either.

Never mind that that number is dwindling, and no one seems to care about  _their_ progress in finding their soulmates. It's always Jensen, Jensen, Jensen. 

It's difficult being an author without knowing the colors of certain things; grass is so commonly described that Jensen has no trouble writing about it in his novels. But seriously, how is he supposed to describe a stained glass window when he barely comes close to knowing even one percent of the colors that exist? In his head, blue might as well be red, green could be yellow, and orange could be purple.

Danneel once tried to describe green to him. "It's, um," she'd started, waving her hands impatiently because she never could seem to gather enough patience to really do this type of thing with him, "Green is like, refreshing. It's like. I mean, it can be bright or dark, and it's-- Ugh, it's impossible to say, Jensen!" He doesn't blame her, of course, but whatever she just said applies to blue and red and yellow and orange, not just green, and Jensen is left wallowing in his own despair as he wonders how long his audience will want to read books with no colorful visuals.

"I just don't understand it." Chris says, stabbing at a half-dissolved sugar cube floating around in his coffee. Jensen watches it, mystified, as it bobs around as if trying to avoid the straw that Chris brings down emphatically. "You shake hands with hundreds of people during your meet and greet sessions. And not a single one of them caused even a ripple, like maybe even one little spark of color?"

Jensen grimaces at him, tearing tiny flakes off of his Danish sourly. "Obviously not, I would have noticed. I just can't believe that my subconscious is so picky that it doesn't want anyone from the groups of people that line up for my signature. I must be a closet narcissist or something, God." He shakes his head at himself and digs his fingers into his temple as though it'll help him relieve some tension. It doesn't work, although the momentary pinch gives him a small reprieve from his frustration.

"You're a narcissist on the outside, too, don't worry." Chris snickers, but when Jensen doesn't even bother gracing the lame attempt at a joke with a laugh of his own, the other man hastily adds, "Well, Jensen, these things have a way of working out. I'm sure someone will come along and, I don't know-"

Danneel, ever the feisty romantic, interjects. "Your manuscript will be bundled up in your arms, and a chilling burst of New York wind will rip the papers from your arms and send them scattering all over the road. People will ignore your pleas for help as you scurry to and fro, trying to collect them, and then-  _Voila_!" She says this with a loud smack of her palm against the table; Chris, with a curse, knocks his coffee over, and Jensen jolts. "-Your soulmate will be standing there with an adorable little smile and a blush and shyly hold out your papers. And your whole world will bloom with color as you brush his or her hand with your own as you take your manuscript." She sighs dreamily, stirring her iced tea with a straw as though she's remembering her own first meeting. 

Chris looks quite grumpy. Then again, his first meeting was the result of a misdirected prank; his soulmate smashed him in the face with a pie, and the collision of his palm against Chris's face had been enough to catapult Chris into a world of color. "Don't get your hopes up for that, but... Look, Jen, with the number of people you meet every day, it's bound to happen sometime soon. You just have to keep shaking hands until then."

This, for some reason, does not sound all that appealing to Jensen.

\---

So Jensen's an author. He's not the next J.R.R Tolkien, but he's managed to land himself in the demographic of teens and young adults with edgy, steampunk novels about rebellion and overcoming class. Maybe his books aren't the next anything, really. He's popular enough, happy with his statistics, and well-known to the general populace.

He doesn't get all that much recognition in Starbucks, but Barnes & Noble loves him so hey, he has to pick his battles. And besides, how many people would be able to identify their favorite authors if they saw them in a grocery store? Jensen only recently Googled Ray Bradbury and was a little scandalized to find that the Ray Bradbury of actuality was in a different universe than the Ray Bradbury in his head. 

So, yeah. He's happy. Or he would be happy, if he could tell passerby what color his own hair was.

"Blondish and brownish." Dani had once told him, but that was entirely unhelpful. What is blonde? What is brown? Maybe blonde is a shade of green, and Jensen's eyes are the same color as his hair. Once you grasp colors, you grasp their shades, so Jensen assumes that Danneel and Chris quickly made use of their abilities and stashed as many colors and their shades as possible into their brains. 

When Jensen looks into the mirror, he sees slight stubble and rings darker than his skin, faint beneath his eyes. He sees hair that, in certain light, looks fairly lighter than his skin, yet in other lights, looks darker. Dani has told him that the soulmate part of it is the really exciting part, but honestly? Jensen just wants to see colors.

\---

"I'm beat," he says to Adrianne after a long, long day. She's his publisher, and a goddamn miracle worker, because she pushes him harder than anyone else he's known. Adi fiddles with her wedding ring, which gleams in polished splendor, and laughs.

"Just a few more signatures, Jen, then you're home free. You wouldn't want to lose a couple faithful fans, would you?" She's found her soulmate, and Jensen can only assume that she will soon be leaving him for the more stressful environs of a life with kids. Granted, she's only three months along, but Jensen would never want her to strain herself. 

"They'll live," Jensen says grumpily, but he wears a bright smile like it's the latest fashion while a shy girl dictates to him what she wants him to write on the inside flap of one of his books. As he scribbles,  _to Marley: waiting in line is worth seeing you smile,_ he wonders if, whoever his soulmate is, he or she is also waiting and feeling abject and wondering if they'll ever see in color. 

It's a depressing thought.

"My beau is taking me out for dinner, so I've got to skedaddle on you." Adi leans over to kiss Jensen's cheek fondly before gathering her papers up into her arms. "Will you be alright?"

"No," Jensen says gravely. "I don't know how to get home. In fact, I've forgotten where I live. Help."

Adi smacks him across the back of the head with a rolled up newspaper. "Don't stay here too long, workaholic. Even bookstores don't want you that much." And then she's gone, and Jensen sighs as he starts to pack his things up and place them one by one into his satchel. It's not that he doesn't love this- seeing fans, meeting and greeting enthusiastic faces and big eyes, but he wonders if maybe it's time to step away from the spotlight. Stuffing his wallet into his pocket, he rubs his eyes before nodding a goodnight to the tuckered-looking sales associate and stepping out into the brisk chill of New York. 

He can't help but ponder Dani's romantics, the way she was so sure about Jensen crashing smack dab into his soulmate... But as much as he loves her, he isn't buying it. It's most likely that one day, in the middle of a handshake, Jensen will finally look outside and see the green of the grass and the blue of the sky. Maybe if he's lucky, he'll really fall in love with his--

His reverie is interrupted when someone smashes right into him. Jensen's reading glasses go flying, skittering along the sidewalk and coming to a halt as the stack of books teeter and follow his glasses to the ground.

"Jesus Christ, I am  _so_ sorry." A high, sweet voice babbles from somewhere above him, and Jensen blinks to clear the slight blurriness brought on by his lack of glasses. They are promptly pushed awkwardly back onto his face, and his vision clears until he can see the dark-dusted cheeks and the floppy hair of the figure standing over him with sharp clarity.

"Uh." He says dumbly, and the kid dives for his books with a grimace and about a hundred more apologies bubbling from his lips. He too drops to his knees to the ground to gather his novels. 

"Man, I don't know how I missed you," the kid is going a mile a minute, scrabbling to readjust his slightly askew beanie and throw his bangs out of his eyes. He's  _pretty,_ Jensen realizes, gangly and big-eyed and brimming with energy. "I swear I'm blind. Or something. Oh,  _man,_ all your books are totally wet, I'm so freakin' sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Hey," Jensen finally regains his voice, and when the kid's eyes snap to his, he forces himself to speak a little more mellowly. "It's not your fault, I wasn't looking where I was going either." Clearing his throat, he adjusts his hold on his books and offers the bright-eyed entity a smile. "Thanks for helping me pick them up."

"No problem," the kid breathes, but no, he's not really a kid; he only seems a few years younger than Jensen. It's just his whole projection that makes him seem young; and, well, Jensen's been told that he looks awfully mature for his age at twenty-four. Jensen can see a certain maturity in the young man's dark irises.

Dear god. He wants a name. And possibly a coffee. Is it too early to start talking marriage?

"Anyway." the kid peers at him from beneath the thin crescents of his eyelashes, "I should, uh-" 

"-Yeah, of course," Jensen says hastily, fumbling and readjusting his glasses and generally making an ass out of himself. "Thanks. Again."

The kid ducks his head and shuffles away, turning one last time to bestow a ( _dearholygod)_ dimpled smile upon Jensen before he's swallowed up by the swell of the crowd. Jensen watches him go for a moment before making his way down the stairs to the subway with a really dumb little sigh of contentment. He's not a fucking teenager; he needs to put on his big boy pants and properly ask people for their numbers. Sighing, he reaches for his wallet-

-which isn't there.

Jensen gives himself one second of rational thought before he flips the actual fuck out. He jams his hand into his pocket, but it's not there, goddammit, his credit cards and money and everything is in that wallet. It's fallen out for sure, probably being trampled or something by the flocks of people, and-- wait, what? Jensen's fingers snag on a piece of paper in his pocket, and he extracts it.

_You seemed cool and really nice, so I'm really sorry about taking your wallet. I won't use your credit cards for anything, I promise. Just needed the cash. -J_

"Fuck!" Jensen swears loudly, muttering a bitter apology when a family of four gives him a scandalized look and urges the children along. Of course the pretty boy with the amazing smile and the bright eyes would be a thief, because that, _that_ is just his luck. He stuffs the paper back into his pocket and stalks for wherever he and "J" had encountered each other. Of course the kid isn't there, because no one's luck is that amazing, but Jensen figures prowling the stores along the street like an enraged feline will somehow help. His goddamn subway pass is in his wallet, for Christ's sake! 

Jensen cannot believe his life sometimes. No, scratch that; he can't believe his life  _most_ of the time. If only he were a character in one of his novels, he would have used his sparkling intellect to determine where the kid had vanished to. But alas, he is just of normal intellectual capacity, and couldn't differentiate between a footstep and an axle track this late at night.  

The kid's probably getting high right now, all of Jensen's money going into fueling some sort of drug habit or something of the sort. And whatever, if that's his lifestyle that's his lifestyle, Jensen ain't judging- but it better damn well be his lifestyle on his  _own_  money! He's probably laughing it up at Jensen, bragging about his catch to his partners in thievery, probably...

...Buying something at the dingy drugstore on the end of the street. 

Jensen, hardly able to believe his eyes, is all ready to burst in through the air-conditioner above the doorway, guns blazing, desperate to teach the little punk a lesson, when he sees that the only thing the kid is buying is a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.

Dani and Chris have always told Jensen he's a huge sap; Jensen hates to admit it, but his heart maybe kind of melts when he sees the kid gathering the bread and peanut butter protectively into his arms and shuffling for the exit like a spooked rabbit. The shopkeeper says something to him with a kind smile, and the kid smiles, a little forlornly, before leaving the store. Jensen oh-so-gracefully dives behind a streetlight and totally doesn't slam his toes into the base as the kid exits the store and examines his purchases. He starts walking the opposite direction, away from Jensen, which is his cue. 

"Stolen any wallets lately?" he can't help saying as he emerges into the light the streetlight casts in an oblong shape onto the emptying road, arms crossed over his chest. What can he say? He's a sucker for theatrical entrances; all his characters have done it. He feels a little like Batman, fighting justice, with his chest puffed out confidently- and then he realizes he was drooling over this kid like, ten minutes ago. That kind of deflates his ego a little bit. The kid freezes like a statue, eyes going saucer-wide before he meets Jensen's eyes... And then for God's sake, he's running like the hounds of hell are at his ankles. 

Jensen curses, taking off after the nimble kid and not all that surprised when this means following him through a series of extremely suspicious alleyways. Goddammit, he's puffing after like five minutes of the intense chasing at the kid's heels, but he really can't blame himself for this. He's an author, not a marathon runner, and while some people are talented enough to be both, Jensen is certainly  _not._ He's kept best in shape as he can without running.  

"Kid, wait!" He bellows, groaning when the kid doesn't even stutter. "I'm not going to do anything to you, just slow the fuck down! I'm not cut out for this." He stops, stooped over, and rests his palms flat on his thighs, and finds, to his relief, that the kid has also come to a hesitant stop a few feet away. "Dude, I just need my subway pass back," he pants, shedding his jacket because now he's sweating, which is great. Really. "Can't get home without it." 

The kid eyes him from a distance for a few long moments, looking highly dubious. Which is kind of unfair, because who's the thief here, again? "You're not going to kill me?"

Jensen shoots him an exasperated look. "Do I look like I'm cut out for murder, kid?"

"I'm 20!" The... Not-kid bristles, apparently quite dignified for having stolen Jensen's wallet and leaving him an _apology_ note. "And my name is Jared." 

Which basically just reaffirms what Jensen had originally thought. "You could be John or Jim for all I care," he lies with a huff, finally straightening. "I just need my goddamn pass, or I'll be sleeping on a bench for the night."

Jared seems to be trying to gauge if he's telling the truth. Jensen cringes, wondering if he was a little tactless, because what if Jared is sleeping on a bench? 

"If I really wanted to get you in trouble, I would have told the shopkeeper." Jensen tells him, still a little breathlessly, "or knifed you when you exited the store. Or something. Look, I don't know, can you just give me my wallet back?" He fishes out the slip of paper and waves it towards Jared. "If you really just wanted the cash, I'm going to need my credit cards and everything back."

"I wasn't going to use all your cash," Jared says petulantly, and Jensen can barely resist an eye-roll.

"Yeah, whatever, you Good Samaritan. Can you hand it over now?"

Jared, apparently viewing Jensen as a harmless old man by this point (no, of course Jensen isn't bristling), trots closer tentatively and hands the wallet off to Jensen with a little tremble. Poor thing looks terrified, really, and even as Jensen takes the wallet back he feels a little bad. His fingers brush against Jared's for just a second before Jared nods and readjusts his grip on his bread and peanut butter. 

"Thanks for the money," he says, his expression an adorable mix of sheepish and pouty. "I-- Maybe I'll see you around?" 

"Not likely," Jensen tells him truthfully, "but for the record? Th-" he's about to thank the other man when he notices that Jared's eyes are sparkling. Not the cliche sparkle-sparkle of a storybook character, but goddamn, a real glow that starts deep in his pupils and bursts into something strangely alive. 

The pain sears through Jensen's skull with a bang, and he's on the verge of asking Jared for help when he notices that the other is already on his knees. Well,  _great._ It's unbearable, the pain is, stampeding and beating against the walls of his head like hundreds of tiny hooves. The feather-brush of Jared's fingers against his own fingertips has exploded into a sweeping tingle that spreads along his arms and legs and shoots up his spine.

When it comes to an abrupt halt, Jensen is looking at a world of color.

He stares at Jared, who has pried his fingers from his temple long enough to take in walls of the alley they're standing in. It's not exactly the most glamorous place to meet your soulmate; it's dank and gross and in his mind's eye, Jensen can see Danneel wrinkling her nose in absolute displeasure. But- who frickin'  _cares?_ He resists an exultant whoop as Jared staggers into a trash can and immediately looks down at his books. They're all different colors-  _colors -_ but Jensen doesn't know which ones yet- one of them is extremely bright, another one a lot dull, but Jesus Christ they're  _beautiful._

Speaking of beautiful.  

Jared, who was gorgeous even in monochrome, is almost resplendent in color. The flush that Jensen could only register with a difference in shades is now bright against Jared's cheeks, creeping up towards his ears. He stares at Jensen in open-mouthed awe, jaw somewhere on the floor beneath his feet, and lifts hesitant fingers.

"Your eyes," his voice trembles, and Jensen is almost overwhelmed by the urge to see himself, to see himself  _anew,_ to see what blonde-brown is and see what the color  _green as grass_ is. "They're so--  _so-"_ He seems to be having a difficult time explaining and instead just looks down at the  _dark_ peanut butter and the  _bright_ lid and the  _white_ bread with the  _light_  crust. Jensen thinks it's probably a good thing color came to them in an alley, or he might have been so consumed by the hundreds and hundreds of colors that he likely would have passed out. 

"Fuck," he breathes, elated at the sight of Jared's eyes; he has no idea how to describe them either, just that they're at once dark and light and glittering and yeah,  _fuck_ seems to be a pretty summative explanation for exactly how they both feel.

And then the enormity of the situation comes collapsing onto Jensen's shoulders like an incessant weight he doesn't need reminding of, and by Jared's expression, he's realized the weight of the soulmate bond. One doesn't choose their soulmate, but once the soulmate is identified, it's hard as  _hell_  getting out of it. People with soulmates don't want to interfere with other people who have found their soulmates, and the people  _without_ soulmates don't want to either for fear that their soulmate will reject them when they find them. It's a complicated situation, and with all his happiness at being able to see the myriad of gorgeous colors, Jensen has forgotten that his soulmate is a thief who doesn't even know his name. 

Jared meets his gaze with the same dismay mirrored in his own ( _beautifulperfectamazing)_ eyes, and this time, when Jensen mutters  _"fuck,"_ it's for an entirely different reason. 

...Shit, Chris is going to laugh his ass off. Jensen would have picked the pie in the face any day. 


	2. Blue Like the Sky

When Jared left home this morning, he certainly didn't expect any of this. 

 

.... Okay, to be fair, he hadn't left home so much as he'd left Chad, Sophia, Mae and a bunch of cardboard boxes, but, y'know. Whatever. He certainly hadn't asked to bump into the most gorgeous man he had ever had the fortune of seeing-- and he certainly hadn't wanted to tie that man into a soulmate bond with him. Oh, and. He hadn't know the man's name up till five minutes ago. Which was great. And to top it all off, he had stole from the guy. He'd stolen from his  _soulmate._ It was just like him to end up this side of screwed, wasn't it? As if the whole homelessness situation isn't Debbie Downer to begin with. 

After-  _Jensen -_ pointed a finger towards him and said, or maybe sort of forced out, "Meet me at the ice rink in an hour," he took off like a bat out of goddamn hell. Jared hasn't seen a man run like that since... Since...

...Well, when had Chad accidentally tripped over that Chihuahua?

Jared sighs, squishing the bread and peanut butter in his arms like they are his children, and descends the stone staircase leading to his and Chad's rather drafty abode. As soon as he walks past the landmark tower of boxes, a pop can hits him square in the head, bounces off, and rolls along the floor with a little clank. Jared doesn't recognize its colors, but it's bright; the rims and tab look like a shiny version of the grey he's used to seeing, but the middle and the shiny letters scrawled along the bright surface are unfamiliar. 

"Chad!" He snaps, wheeling towards the shadows and squinting towards where he knows his best friend is lurking.

"Jay, you raunchy son of a bitch." Chad Michael Murray comes wheeling out of the shadows, somehow managing to swagger without legs. "You scared the fuck out of me." Jared stares at his friend, newly mystified by the shade of his hair and the color of his eyes. 

Two years ago, Chad's legs had locked together and refused to come unlocked. One second he's running and skateboarding and flying, and the next, he's grounded in a wheelchair. The homeless clinic they went to was mostly useless beside telling Chad he was never going to be walking again and threw around terrifying, expensive terms while Jared and Chad eavesdropped from outside on the metal bench, words like  _cancer_ and  _ALS_ and  _cerebral palsy._ Somewhere in the midst of their private conferring, Chad turned to Jared and whispered,  _"hey, dude, smuggle me one of those wheelchairs and let's get the fuck out of here."_

And Jared obliged.

So now here they are.

"Aw, shit! Is that peanut butter?" Chad wheels over in style, smirking from ear to ear as he relieves Jared of the not so burdensome load. "Why are you staring at me? Have you realized that you're never going to find your soulmate and have to take me up on my offer of 'fuck or die alone'?" He bats his eyelashes sweetly at Jared, who laughs dryly and resists the urge to touch Chad's hair. It's all spiky and stands up in a mess of probably greasy tufts.... Kinda like Jensen's, except Chad's is much lighter and Jensen probably uses nice shampoo all the time to make his all soft, and nope, not gonna think about Jensen. 

"I doubt Sophia would appreciate that," he tells his friend, twisting the lid and peering into the peanut butter to figure out what the murky color could possibly be. Maybe this is purple?

"Please, Jared, you know Sophia would join," Chad tells him with another smarmy smile. "Look, dude, I'm just sayin'- if you never find your soulmate, you're always welcome to join us. Sophia loves you like a brother."

"I'm sure everyone sleeps with their brothers." Jared says with cynical enthusiasm, and Chad throws the lid at him. "And anyway, Chad-"

"Not everyone finds their soulmates anyway, Jay, I mean- Look at Mae! 89 years old and just as beautiful as the day she was born- God knows that woman is perfectly happy without a soulmate." Chad sighs fondly, running his fingers through his hair in a futile attempt to get it to lie flat.

"Yeah, Mae is great, but-"

"I'm just worried about your quickly diminishing sex drive, y'know what I mean?" Chad flails dramatically, all but yelling, and Jared cringes as he's sure everyone now knows about his nonexistent sex life. Well, everyone in their part of the community. And besides, there's nothing wrong with his sex drive! He's perfectly healthy, thank-you-very-much. 

"Well," he hushes Chad by quickly wheeling him underneath the tarp roof of their scraggly shelter. "You won't have to worry about that, because I found him. Found my soulmate." He clears his throat expectantly, folding his hands behind his back like he's just asked Chad to give away his hand in marriage. 

Chad shuts up (it's sort of eerie) and stares at him for a long, long time. So long that Jared starts to feel a little nervous. His friend finally emits a sound, and Jared does a double take when he notices that, in the waning light, Chad's eyes are welling up. 

"Chad- are you  _crying?"_

"My baby boy has finally found his soulmate!" Chad bawls, throwing his arms around Jared's midsection. Jared rolls his eyes at Chad's blatant theatrics and tries to unravel his hands from around his waist, valiantly fighting off a smile when Chad clamps on and refuses to let go.  

"I'm not your baby-" 

"Wait. Are you just lying at me so I'll get off your case? What color is my hair?" Chad narrows his eyes at Jared, who feels momentary offense before throwing his arms up. 

"I don't know, but it's ugly." He lies sourly, and Chad directs a watery smile at him. 

"I'll give you the books on color I smuggled from Sophia-- she went to the book charity this morning." He says, wheeling himself over to the cardboard box and retracting the artsy books splashed with a medley of wonderful, bright colors. Jared takes it gingerly, knowing how grateful he looks.

"So I smuggle food and you just steal your girlfriend's books?" Jared shakes his head wryly, cuffing Chad's head gently with his wrist, even though they both know well enough that the ramp they'd been using to wheel Chad in and out had broken, leaving him incapable of making it to the upper level. "I ought to dump you with her instead of trying to provide for you, too."

Chad waves the details away dismissively. "Well, where is he? Who is he? Tell me more, Jared!" he whines. 

Just thinking about Jensen makes Jared's gut twist. "He's beautiful, Chad," he says truthfully, "God, you should see his eyes, they're like..." He flips through the acquired color book until he lands on a page chock full of shades of Jensen's eyes. 

"Ah," Chad nods appreciatively. "His eyes are green."

Jared looks up at Chad's bright eyes and nods, thumbing over the one square that he thinks is closest to the color of Jensen's eyes.  _Grass g_ _reen,_ he thinks.  

"But- Okay, where is he, then?" Chad sounds a blend of distressed and impatient, and Jared sighs a little mournfully as he continues to leaf through the pages with an absent thumb.  

"He, uh, wants nothing to do with me, probably." He admits a little shakily, hugging the book to himself as Chad tears a slice of bread in half. "Not that I can blame him, but- I mean. It's a shitstorm, man." He sinks onto a box and shakes his head, and Chad squints at him before stuffing the piece of bread, now slathered in peanut butter, into his mouth.

He glares at Chad as he chews, and Chad shrugs unrepentantly. "Eating solves everything. Anyway, start at the beginning."

And Jared does. He tells Chad about scouring the streets in search of easy money to pickpocket, of getting nervous the later it got, of his stomach grumbling until he was buckling from the pain, of spotting Jensen and quickly writing the note before purposely smashing into him. He delineates every action, remembers it all vividly- and shamefully slips in exchanging Jensen's wallet for paper while the other man's glasses had skittered on the ground. 

And Chad loses it.

"You  _stole_ your soulmate's  _wallet?"_ He crows, cackling and smacking his wheel while Jared sulks, sinking down against the box. "Fuck, that's rich! Did he chase you down or something?" 

"Yes," Jared huffs while his idiot friend sobers. "Yes, actually, and then while I was giving him his wallet back, our hands touched, and-"

"Wait, so lemme get this straight." Chad lifts a hand, still trying to stifle snickers, "you use the pencil and paper I so generously provide you with to write apology notes to people? God, you're such a sappy fuck." 

Jared scowls. "I don't like stealing from people!" He cries, distressed. Hell, it's a miracle he knows how to write in and of itself, but then... That's all in part to Mae. She told them she would teach them the art of literacy before she died, but then, she never expected to live past sixty. So now, Jared, Sophia, and a highly reluctant Chad know how to read. Well, a little more; for Jared, it had been rusty, like trying to ride a bike after not having done it for years. "And who's bringing the food, here?"

Chad shakes his head. "Anyway, what's the plan now?"

"He wants me to meet him in about half an hour at the ice rink." Jared sighs, rubbing the back of his neck and meddling with his beanie as he looks skyward. "He's probably going to bring the cops or something, try to see if he can rebuke our soulmate bond or something. Like I said, I can't blame him." Although, it is sad, because Jensen truly seems like a quite kind person and hadn't even shanked Jared right there in front of the store. A small mercy, all things considered.  

"Wow, wait to see the silver lining." Chad rolls his eyes and wheels a little closer to his friend. "Look, go see him. He probably isn't out to arrest you, just- consider how he feels, y'know? He's probably even more confused and nervous as you are."

Jared stares at him for a moment.

"Oh, Wise Chad-"

"Christ, shut up."

\---

So Jared goes. Because, really, what's the worse that can happen? He can spot police from a mile away and run pretty quickly, so it can't hurt. Or ... It could hurt, but he won't stick around long enough to find out. 

Jensen places himself awfully conveniently; he is standing in front of the ice rink, slouched against the railing wearing a neutral expression and a silky, multicolored scarf, both of which retract nothing from how insanely gorgeous he is. At this angle, Jared can't sneak up on him, and he sees him coming from about five minutes away. Jared flusters, speeding his walk as Jensen's gaze sweeps him from head to toe. By the time he staggers up to the man, he feels like he's on the receiving end of severe scrutiny.

"What's your full name?" Jensen asks simply, flatly. With barely a twitch or any other introduction. Jared's palms start to sweat a little bit as he burrows past too many false aliases to find his real middle and last names. 

"Jared," he manages in a crackly whisper, "Jared Tristan Padalecki."

"How long have you been on the streets?" Jensen's voice is still steady, but Jared gets this feeling that Jensen really doesn't approve of their soul bond. Course, he doesn't blame the guy, but... It kind of stings all the same. He wracks his brain. 

"I guess- four or five years," he decides, because that sounds like a good number to go off of. It's not like Jensen will be able to verify it, anyway. He braces himself for the harder questions that he foresees coming, mouth twisting into a frown, and Jensen's eyebrows knit together almost sympathetically.

"If I'm going to be your soulmate, I'm going to need to know about you," he says calmly, and Jared watches him neatly fold his arms over his chest. His eyes are drawn to the way the muscles strain against Jensen's skin; they were hidden when his arms were relaxed and by his side, but ... He hadn't known Jensen had worked out this much. To be honest, he'd thought Jensen didn't strain his muscles all that much at all, since he'd been puffing when chasing him the day before, but he'd apparently been wrong. 

"I get it," Jared shoves his hands into his threadbare coat and curls his fingers into the bottom of the cloth to find some sort of purchase. "I- I'm not offended. Just- I've never had to tell anyone about my condition, I guess." A brisk breeze sweeps by, tugging at the hair curled around his ears and yanking along the tattered ends of his scarf. "It just feels weird to be asked." 

Jensen unthaws a little from his frozen, Greek-sculpture pose, staring almost piercingly at him from over his scarf. There's no way Jared can look away from those wonderful, wonderful eyes- Those are going to be what he misses the most when Jensen decides to cut ties with him.  

"No one's ever asked you anything?" 

"A-About?" Jared folds his arms, against the chill, heart seizing when Jensen leans forward a little bit. Despite himself, he takes a nervous step back, only for Jensen to reach out for him. 

"I'm not here to arrest you, Jared." Jensen assures, sounding as if he's straddling the line between exasperated and hasty. "Just-- You've probably been on the streets for a while now, right? I guess- I guess I just want to know if anyone's ever talked to you."

Jared smiles a little, even if it's kind of hard. It doesn't come as naturally as he'd hoped it would have. "New Yorkers have busy lives, Jensen," he murmurs, tugging at his cap so its coverage isn't quite as sparse. "If- If I stand there on the streets with, with all of the rest of them, then I can-- I can sort of imagine, sometimes, that-"

"-You're part of them," Jensen finishes, his voice so soft that Jared almost flinches. He can't help but despise the pity, which he can almost feel emanating from Jensen in waves. It's natural, of course, for Jensen to feel pity for him, but Jared isn't as distraught about his home on the streets as everyone probably would imagine homeless people to be. He doesn't really have a chance, not with Chad and Sophia and Mae....

Jared draws in a deep breath. "But it's okay. I've accepted it, and I-- I get it if you, if you don't want anything to do with me. I mean, I don't know what to do-"

"Whoa, whoa,  _wait."_ Jensen steps forward again, and Jared's heart jumps into a sharp staccato. "I'm not going to break the bond, Jared. I kinda like seeing in color, you know?" He permits a tiny smile, and Jared almost wants to cry, because the man seriously is so beautiful. This is his  _soulmate._ If he wasn't homeless, this man would be the man he'd spend the rest of his life with. This man would be the person he'd wake up to in the mornings, the person he'd go to bed with, who he'd eat and walk and talk about the weather with. The lump in his throat is almost unbearable. "I was just thinking-- if... If you're okay living the way you are, or if you don't want me in your life, we could just go on living our separate lives. If-- If that's okay." 

As far as ideas go, it's pretty fair- even if it tramples Jared's heart a little. Yeah, maybe the romantic in Jared is dying a painful death at the thought of letting his stunning soulmate walk away, but Jared needs to stay with Chad, and Jensen can't risk a homeless person as his soulmate, so this is the compromise that has to happen.

Jared's head jerks into a nod helplessly.

"Well, good," Jensen sounds a little relieved, and Jared feels the verbal sting like a physical slap. "I was-"

"What?" Jared breathes a harsh laugh. "Worried that you'd be tethered to a homeless guy?" It's a low blow, and not Jensen's damn fault, but this is basically Jared's dream life shattering into millions of tiny pieces. "Yeah, don't worry." 

Jensen looks a little scandalized, the green rings around his pupils blown wide and his eyelashes fluttering into a confused blink. "What? Jared, no, that's not it. It's not like that. It's just-"

The ache of defeat hurts worse than Jensen's earlier comment, and Jared deflates. "Yeah, man, I get it. I stole from you, and I'm homeless. It's not going to work. I hope you enjoy your color vision. Thanks, I guess."

The new look Jensen is giving him is a little sad. "I'm really sorry, Jared." He says as he heads back towards the bookshop that Jared had first smashed into him in front of.  

"Yeah," Jared's whisper of a voice breaks as he watches Jensen's back. "I am, too." 

\---

Jared had really been hoping Chad would be there when he got back; his wish is granted, but Sophia is there, too, and Mae is sitting in her favorite busted chair, threading hundreds of mostly breaking CDs onto a string. He can already hear Chad talking about him, Sophia's excitement in the form of happy squeals, and it only makes him feel more like a deflated balloon when he pulls himself into the clearing.

"Jay?" Chad inquires, trying for a hopeful smile even though Jared's face is easier to read than a picture book, and Jared shakes his head with a forlorn little laugh.

"C'mon, Chad, it- He's probably rich and happy and going to find some dude or chick who can match him. This isn't a fairy-tale- We're homeless, in case you hadn't goddamn noticed." He's aware he's sounding snappy in the face of Chad's hope, but he feels a little mean, a little hurt when he sees Chad's hand laced into Sophia's. He almost wants to send Chad's hope in the same direction as his own hope had gone.

"This guy must be magical," Chad says mildly as Sophia's mouth forms a perfect o. "He managed to turn you into an asshole in just an hour." 

And just like that, the fight completely rushes out, leaving Jared feeling even more hollow. He pulls a box up beside Chad's chair so he's even with his best friend's shoulder and rests his head into his ragged coat as an apology. The few tears he has to spare trickle slowly over his cheeks and vanish into the patchy wool as he curls his arm around Chad's. Chad stays silent, but Jared knows Chad's as hurt about this as he is. It's kind of like how splintered Jared felt when Chad had lost his ability to walk, but only fractionally. 

Mae hums as her CDs clack together, her smile kind and her gaze kinder still. "There're a lot of pretty boys in the world, Jay, baby." 

"No," Jared lifts his face, determined as he rubs away the tears. "I don't. I don't want to deal with that. Jensen just wanted the color vision, and I have it now, too, and I'm happy with it." 

"Jay-" Chad starts, looking visibly pained. 

Jared summons his dimples as best as he can. "It's gonna be okay. I mean, look at Mae." 

"Damn right," Mae mutters upon hearing her name, her hearing albeit sketchy due to her age. 

"I could go kick his ass."

"You're in a wheelchair."

Chad spins his wheels, agitated. "Never stopped me before." 

"That won't help anything." Jared says calmly. "I'm disappointed, but I'm not going to dwell on this as much. I'm going to learn all about colors and forget about Jensen." 

Chad's about to say something else, Jared sees it coming, but all that comes out is a lurching sort of hack. Chad's entire body seizes, his eyes rolling upwards as his locked legs thrash madly, and Jared is forced to dodge the haphazard swing of his arms, too, before he lunges to hold Chad down.

"Chad! Chad!" he hears himself screaming, but for some reason, nothing comes out other than a million broken "Chads." Sophia is also on her feet, and Mae just looks stunned and feeble and frozen on the side, so Jared tries to keep his friend from hurting himself by grabbing Chad's wrists. He doesn't know what's fucking happening, he doesn't know what to do- this has never been a problem, never, this has never happened. Not in two years.  _What the fuck is happening?_

"Chad! Chad, baby, baby, please," Sophia begs, trying to hold Chad still long enough to run her fingers through his hair. Jared's world blurs together as he propels himself away from Chad, who's obviously going through some sort of seizure. He needs-- He needs to get help, he needs to, to find someone to help him- To help Chad- 

He's running so fast he thinks his skin might peel, and the tears are so razor sharp now that they might be leaving scars etched into him, but he can't think about anything but Chad, Chad, whose health they'd neglected for two years now. 

By the time he's pushing past the glass doors of the bookstore, he's sobbing so hard that he can hardly breathe, and he's such a mess that he barely notices Jensen teleporting to his side almost inhumanly fast. He clings to his soulmate, the tears streaming so uncontrollably that Jared can't seem to piece words together in a coherent sentence. All he can think about his Chad. He's been with him for years, since that very first day on the streets, and damned if he lets his friend die, if he-

"Jared? Hey, Jared, what's wrong? Did someone do something to you? What happened?" Jensen's voice is low and concerned beside his ear, so Jared figures he's stooped over, bent almost in two. 

"My b-best f-friend," he keens, fingers sliding through the buttonholes of Jensen's jacket as he holds on and doesn't dare let go. "Please, J-Jensen, I, I can't take him t-to the c-clinic and, and. Please." He gulps for air. "He m-might d-die. Jensen, d-do something, p-please."

It seems like he hadn't had to say anything, because Jensen's already in the process of dialing 911, his fingers tight against Jared's hip. "What street do you live under, Jared?" He says, his tone so extremely calm that Jared actually feels the effect of it wash over him long enough to make him actually comprehensible. 

"P-Polaris," Jared shudders, curling forward when he remembers what Chad always says about Polaris. "L-Like the star, it's, it's like the star-"

"The one just outside? Only a few minutes away? Near that one glitzy club?" Jensen dictates the address to the woman on the other end, and his hand hasn't left Jared's side, like it's trying to brace him or steady him or something, and if Jared hadn't been so distraught he would've appreciated the fact that it was literally the only thing keeping him from falling over.  

Jared's head jerks into a nod, and Jensen hangs up, fingers wrapping around his palm. "Jared, take me to your friend. C'mon. Ambulance is going to be there in a few."

Jared somehow gets his legs working long enough to lead Jensen down the steps and past the boxes, and he's only a few moments away when he hears Sophia screaming like her heart's being cut out.

"Chad! Chad! Baby, wake up, p-please, Chad, Chad, Ch-" her head is pressed into the joint between Chad's hip and thigh, and she looks up when Jared approaches to fix him with watery heartbreak. "Jay," she bawls, her voice a wisp after her screaming, "My vision, the colors, the- they're-"

Jared's world has started spinning at this point, and he can't- he knew there'd be consequences of not figuring out what Chad's problem was, but if he'd known he would be standing here two years later, staring at Chad's lax lips and pale face, his chest barely rising and falling and his fingers twitching, he would have forced his best friend to get a diagnosis right then and there.

It's common knowledge, even to someone like Jared who lives under the street and has barely any knowledge of the politics of color vision, that color vision fades when your soulmate dies. That Sophia's vision is flickering, waning, is an attribute to just how serious Chad's condition is. It's suddenly a hundred times harder for Jared to take in a breath, and his chest constricts so tightly that he thinks it might be collapsing in on itself.

"The ambulance is here." Jensen's the only one with control over the situation, and Jared realizes his head must be working on its own as it slowly, kind of numbly angles towards the other man. Jensen's dark gaze fixates on him. "Jared, we need to wheel him towards the stairs so it's easier for them to transfer his body to the stretcher." 

"Don't-" Jared's tongue lashes out over his lip as sudden anger throws him off-guard, "don't say  _his body_ like he's already dead," he shrills, eyes automatically widening when he realizes how awful he's being towards the only person helping him. "Oh  _god,"_ he chokes out, his words barely just a wheeze as he takes the handles of Chad's wheelchair and tries not to look down at the unresponsive form beneath him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Jensen-"

Jensen squeezes his arm once, gently. "It's okay, Jared," he says, guiding him to the stairs as the paramedics hurry down to move Chad's prone form from wheelchair to stretcher. "It's common to get angry and defensive in situations like this."

"I don't even know what his eye color is yet," Jared sobs, and everything hurts. Everything is emptying out of him, leaving behind a massive black hole, and it aches even more when he sees Sophia with her head resting in the swoop of Chad's wheelchair, weeping uncontrollably, and Mae's string of CDs littered on the ground, trampled and crushed from all the commotion. The kind-hearted old woman is meticulously gathering them in her arms, her other hand rubbing soothing circles over Sophia's back, and if Jared stares any harder at them, he might combust. "I, I was going to look i-it up, and I was going to, to- I was going to ask him what color mine was, and now he might d-die, and-  _and I might never know."_

Jensen voice is incredibly soft when he says, "Come with me. I'll take you and your friend to the hospital, Jared." And as he turns towards him, Jensen adds, 

"They're blue, by the way. The color of his eyes is blue."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I introduce Chad and almost kill Chad in the same go. I really suck, don't I? 
> 
> Also, I'll be adding details over the course of the next week or so, AND this will probably be more than four chapters. *sighs*


	3. White Like the Hospital Walls

Jensen doesn't know what's frickin' happening. 

"So you're in the hospital now? With Jared?" Danneel's voice crackles with concern. "How's his friend?"

Jensen rubs deep circles into his forehead, letting out a sigh as he glances towards the ICU. His soulmate (!) is pacing back and forth in front of the door like an agitated animal, startling any time someone approaches him, and Jensen can only assume that Jared has never stepped foot in a place like the hospital before. The poor kid has worn his fingernails to stubs as he stares at the door through swollen eyes. Swollen  _red_ eyes.

"It's, uh." Jensen scrubs at his jaw. "'S not good, Danni. Look, I'm gonna go see if Jared's okay. Just wanted to let you and Chris know where I was. I'll talk to you later?"

Danneel makes some sort of committal sound before hanging up, and Jensen looks around the corridor of the hospital. To the him of about four hours ago, this would've been a perfectly normal place, but to the Jensen with color vision, the place is almost horrifically bland. And so very, very white. Just. White everywhere. They're in the process of painting the walls (with more white paint, for God's sake), and Jensen has the absurd urge to pour dye into all cans. 

"Jare," he says, the nickname bouncing off his tongue. He cringes when Jared just stares at him, even though he'd had a hunch that he nickname wasn't for Jared. He'd known a Jared in high school that he'd called Jare, but he'd hated that idiot, so he needed a new nickname for Jared pronto. 

"Hn?" Jared kind of makes some sort of sound that falls short of an actual response, but Jensen takes it for what it is. Kid's had a hard day, what with the rejection and this, and... Jensen scrubs a hand over his jaw and sighs. 

"How're you holding up?" It's a stupid question- the kid looks fucking miserable. Jensen's written so many hospital scenes that he ought to know what, exactly, to say, but he's a lot less eloquent in real life than he is through prose, so.

Jared continues to stare at him; Jensen can't blame him. Then, the kid turns to the window and starts talking, so quietly that Jensen has to lean in a little bit to hear him.

"I used to live in, in Texas," Jared says, hands pressed to glass as he stares at the whitewashed walls within. "We all came to New York for vacation, and... I went for dinner with my family. There was a fire that same night in that particular restaurant, and my entire family burned... Except for me." His voice goes a little flat, and Jensen's stomach does a somersault. 

"Jared, I-"

"It's okay, it's been a long time," Jared whispers, peeling his palm from the glass. Jensen sees his skin rising, goosebumps littering his tan skin. "I didn't have a way back home, and I didn't want to--" He takes a deep breath. "I tried to find any of my family that might have survived, thought maybe... Maybe I could-" He shakes his head. "But there was nothing left. And then it got exponentially worse." 

Jared seems to have trailed off, caught in a distant dream- no, nightmare, judging by the haunted, half-mast gaze -and Jensen gently shakes Jared's shoulder to snap him out of it. The poor kid's day has been one big shitstorm anyway, no thanks to him, and Jensen doesn't want past trauma leaking in to stir the pot. "Jared, I don't want you to talk about it." 

He realizes how much of an asshole he sounded like when Jared's eyebrows draw together.

"I mean..." Jensen sighs. "You can talk to me about it later. Don't you think you're suffering enough already?" He squeezes Jared's upper arm gently, and Jared nearly flinches as if the contact has physically hurt him. But in a second, the kid seems to gather himself into something a bit more stable and muster up a weak grin. "Look, Jared," he hesitates, unsure whether to broach the topic or not. "Chad's not gonna get fixed overnight. They're going to want to keep him here, run him through tests, see what the problem is.... You should think about--" 

"Nuh-uh." Jared's jaw shuts down, locking so tight that Jensen almost hears a veritable snap. "I'm staying here. Soph is back at the shelter with Mae, so I have to. To be here. With him."  

In all the chaos, Jensen, for a moment, had forgotten who Soph was. Then he recalls the girl sobbing in the wheelchair, and it comes back to him. "I wanted to bring her," he says, but Jared shakes his head with a wry, bitter little laugh. 

"She was too scared to come," he says, looking down at his hands. "And someone n-needs to take care of Mae," he adds, his voice cracking a little bit. "She- they would never forgive me if I abandoned Chad at the hospital." Jensen wraps his arms around himself, trying not to shiver at the apparent loyalty Jared holds for his friend. But when he hears Jared's stomach riot and watches a pretty blush skitter across the taller man's angular face, he has to step in. "Alright, Jared, but you've gotta eat something. C'mon, let me get you something from the vending machine."

Jared looks like he's going to protest, but his stomach grumbles again, and Jensen watches the kid bite his lip and scoop a handful of brown locks from his eyes. "Okay," he acquiesces in a whisper, his nose a little pink from the chill and his shiver almost unnoticeable. Jensen takes in all of Jared's colors meticulously for a moment... and now that he's properly looking, Jared's clothes are full of holes; his coat is ratty, his gloves torn into with gaps that expose pale palms and darker knuckles. He has no fuckin' idea how the kid's even been staying warm.

The guilt rips into his stomach, burns like fire and freezes into ice. "C'mon, kid." He gestures and starts to walk, smiling a little when Jared trails behind him like a nervous shadow. "So, uh, what do you want?" He questions, pulling out his wallet and jerking his head towards the vending machine. Jared examines the things on the shelves and smiles a little. 

"Can I have gummy worms?" He lights up from sheer childish delight, nail brushing along the glass of the vending machine as he points at the pack of candy. Jensen wrinkles his nose, hand resting on his hip in mock disapproval.

"That's not really proper food," he chides, but when Jared continues to stare at the gummy worms like they're his saviors, Jensen folds like a deck of cards. Sighing, he reaches into the flap and draws out the yellow bag, and Jared leaps for it like an excited puppy. He absolutely devours them, peeling out worm after sticky worm and plowing right through them like he can't get enough.

"So good, Jensen," Jared's lips are dusted with sugar, and Jensen watches with no small amount of interest as Jared's tongue darts out to sweep away the remnants on his mouth. "I haven't had these in forever." He finally looks up from a sugar-coated red and yellow worm, his face so warm and flushed and open that Jensen feels like the tool he totally is.

Oh, look- It's his good friend guilt. Good to see ya again, guilt. How've you been?

He ends up buying Jared two more packs of gummy worms, never mind the inevitable sugar rush, before they go back. Jared is jittery now, bouncing in place as he chews on his sugar-red lower lip, and it's driving Jensen a little crazy. 

"You were right, you know," he hears Jared say after a few moments, and the kid comes to a stop long enough to glance sidelong at him. "I know me being here doesn't do anything for Chad... And they're not going to let me see him anyway, are they? But I just- I just feel like... Like if I'm not here, then I'm betraying him."

Even though Jensen was more or less a dick to Jared earlier, he knows what he has to do. He slings his arm around his soulmate's waist, elbow hooking into Jared's hip, and lets the younger man push his head under his chin for comfort. No offense to Jared, but he kind of expected the kid to ... Well, smell like the seedy underbelly of the city and all, but Jared just smells like how cold air feels. There's the alcohol and something that reminds Jensen of cardboard, but... Nothing else. His hair is cold, his skin is cold, and even the jacket thinly draped over his shoulders is cold. He feels Jared's tentative arm curling around his own waist but doesn't say anything, just waits for any kind of news.

The doctor steps out of the room after an hour, and Jared immediately releases Jensen in favor of scrambling up to her eagerly. She smiles, albeit warily, and looks between Jensen and Jared.

"Are you his family?" she inquires, her smile gentle, and since Jared seems to have frozen, Jensen hastily interjects. 

"No, we're just his friends." Jensen says smoothly, lies rolling to the tip of his tongue as he scrambles to add, "Kid doesn't have parents, y'know, so... It's just us." 

"Alright." She nods without a hint of judgment and turns to Jared. "If I ask you some questions about your friend, do you think you'll be able to answer them? It's about his medical history as far as you know." 

Jared, it seems, is struggling to respond. Jensen steps close, pushing his leg up against Jared's so they're almost standing hip to hip, and nods encouragingly at him. "Yeah," Jared manages after a moment, his voice whisper-soft. "Is-- What's wrong with him?"

"Our best guess is that your friend has had a hemorrhagic stroke." she responds without any sort of lead-in at all. Jensen knows that the blunt truth is often the best approach to take, but when Jared goes snow white and starts trembling almost immediately, Jensen mutters a thinly-veiled curse and takes his soulmate's pale hand. 

"B-But he's o-only, he's o-only twenty-one." Jared manages, still visibly shaken. 

"Yes, well," the doctor hesitates for just a moment, running a hand through her thick hair.  _It's red,_ Jensen thinks, red like Danni's. "The chance of strokes has increased in people from ages 20 to 60. But the good thing about this is that we've learned a lot about them. Your friend has an eighty percent chance of survival."  


"He could  _die?"_ Jared's voice is sharp and high, trailing off into a little wheeze. Jensen bites his tongue when Jared's fingers chase the blood from his knuckles as they tighten almost painfully. 

"There's a very small chance of that," the doctor disagrees, still wearing a placating smile. "In order to explain it to you in layman's terms, I'll just say this- we'll be giving him steroids. He should recover soon enough. There's a matter of therapy we're mandated to undergo for patients who have undergone strokes, so it's likely he may be here for a few days."

"A few d--" Jared looks like he's very well going to pass out.

"I can see that you're going to need some time to digest this," the doctor says warmly, and Jensen wishes he had the ability to calm people down, because Jared looks so scared and small that it's making his chest physically ache. "I would suggest you go home and rest, and then come back tomorrow. I still have questions for you. I've filled out a visitor's pass for the both of you," she hands them the passes on lanyards. "You can bring them back tomorrow in order to see the patient. Until then." She says, looking between them before pushing the doors to the ICU open again. 

"I have to tell Soph," Jared barely manages, and Jensen has no idea how the kid is even standing.

"Jared, no." he snaps, "What you're going to do is come back with me to my apartment and lie down. You're going to  _sleep,"_ he pointed for emphasis, "and then you can come back and deal with Chad and Sophie, get it?"

Even past the watery film of tears, Jared manages to look confused more so than anything else. "But you don't want me in your house. I m-mean," he clarifies when Jensen blinks in confusion, "You don't want me at all. Why are you trying to help me?"

This time, Jensen's almost left gasping from the sucker punch. "Christ," he manages, because Jared might very well be the death of him. "Jared,  _please,"_ he all but begs. "Just come back with me, kid. A good night's sleep isn't going to kill you."

Thankfully, Jared doesn't add a finishing blow, and instead allows Jensen to wrangle him into the passenger seat and drive him to his apartment. The kid is quiet the whole damn way, eyes fixated on New York as it pulses by, alive with lights and life, and Jensen can't help but wonder if this is the first time Jared's seen New York like this, glittering in the dead of the night.

By the time they're inside the comfort of Jensen's warm apartment, Jared is crying again, water pearling in his eyelashes and rolling down his arching cheekbones, and Jensen panics and he crouches at his soulmate's side.

"Jared, what's wrong?" 

Jared lifts his wrist to mop the tears away with the torn leather cuffs. "You've been so nice to me, Jensen," he whispers, and it's crackly, like static. Jensen's head starts to pound. "You took me to the hospital and bought me candy and now you're letting me sleep here, and," Jared breaks off into a small whimper that goes straight to Jensen's heart. "Thank you. I know you didn't want anything to do with this, but thank you." 

Jensen draws Jared in close, allows his lips to brush up against the chilly hair. He doesn't know if Jared felt it or not, but he needed to do it. God, but he's a selfish bastard. "Don't worry about it, Jay," he says, and when Jared draws in a small breath, Jensen feels the rightness of the nickname settle on his tongue. "Get on out of all these cold clothes and lay 'em out by the heater, that'll get them warmed up for the night." 

Jared nods and obediently shimmies out of his jeans and jacket, leaving him standing skinny and open for Jensen's eyes in only a pair of boxers and a baggy white t-shirt. Even though Jared's thin, way too thin for his own good, the kid's still so fuckin' pretty, his qualities almost vulpine in nature. He glances at the discarded pile of clothes, wondering how they wash them.

"Mae has some friends that run a mobile Laundromat," Jared says in a small voice as though he read Jensen's mind, "We take our clothes once a week-- all stuff from the shelters, y'know? We all got a bag of clothes and we get 'em washed once a week so they're not completely disgusting." He sounds so matter-of-fact, and Jensen grits his teeth.

"Well, while you're here, we'll run them through my washer and dryer." Jensen says, just as nonchalant, and Jared gives him a look of unconcealed surprise. He wants to tell Jared that he's not a total monster, but he doubts that's what Jared thinks, and besides, he kind of is a total monster. 

Jared nods, his eyes soft with gratitude again, but his nodding kind of turns into nodding off as his chin drops to tuck against his chest. Jensen laughs a little, nudging the kid towards the bed, but Jared comes to a halt just in front of it.

"I can't," he slurs, his words running together from the fatigue. "Can't sleep in your bed, Jensen." 

"Don't be stupid, Jay." Jensen manages after a moment, his fingers curling into a fist. "It's an actual bed, Jared, c'mon." God knows where Jared has been sleeping, because the kid is looking at the mattress through half-mast eyes like a starving man looks at a gourmet meal. 

"You gonna come?" Jared turns to face Jensen, eyes now barely visible through the curtain of bangs. Jensen resists the overwhelming urge to part them out of the way and sighs a little. He was going to take the couch, but Jared is giving him a look that he probably thinks looks only a little bit hopeful but actually looks a lot more hopeful than that, and Jensen resigns with a small sigh. 

"Yeah, Jay, I'm gonna come. Give me a minute to change into something comfortable," he says with a small smile as Jared all but collapses onto the bed with a mighty thump. The kid immediately curls up to the wall, snuggling a pillow, leaving Jensen with twice the amount of room that he has. Jensen makes a note to uncurl Jared before he goes to sleep and backs out of the room to shower. When he emerges from the shower, he finds Jared tucked into what appears to be a ball, his arms wrapped around his knees with the pillow trapped in his embrace. He can't help but smile a little, and he sets out to loosen Jared's limbs. Kid's gonna cramp tomorrow if he doesn't give all those long limbs space to breathe, right? 

Jared moves with Jensen's touch, loose and pliable, and soon, Jensen has him sprawled over a lot more of the bed. He climbs in himself, sort of unsurprised when Jared's hand somehow finds his elbow and gently shoves up against it, almost like he's finding a point of contact. It's common with soulmates to be tactile, and Jensen's been all but hugging Jared since they brought his friend to the hospital, so he's perfectly fine with Jared touching him.

He looks around his apartment for the first time since getting his color vision; he'd been in the bookstore when Jared had called, and then he'd never gotten a chance to come back. The bed is a hideous shade of green that he cannot  _believe_ Danneel let him buy, and the carpet isn't all that attractive either. But Jensen's books, neatly lined in rows and rows in his bookshelves, are all kinds of gorgeous colors- maroon, dark, forest green, deep grey, light blue. Some of them are bordered in a shinier, yellow-like color which Jensen thinks to be gold. The table is also a rich shade of brown-- or maybe red? It's like a mix of both of them, gleaming in the tiny little glow of the nightlight. 

He admires all of them as he feels Jared curl in closer, and sighs as he weaves a lazy hand through Jared's irresistible hair. 

Seriously, what's he going to do with this kid? 

\---

He wakes up before Jared does, but he's not really surprised about it. The kid is in a sleep so deep that he's practically dead to the world, but Jensen can't sleep any longer than this. The moment he rolls out of bed, his phone goes off. 

"H'llo," he kind of moans into the phone, his yawn cutting halfway into the word. He can practically hear Chris rolling his eyes.

"Open up, asshole. I'm outside... And I come bearing gifts."

It doesn't even register to him for a minute, but when it does, he sputters. 

"Wait- what? You guys are outside?" He groans, making his way to the door with no small amount of annoyance. "Is it too much to ask to be left alone these days?" He gripes, only half-teasing at this point.

"I'm outside," Chris corrects. "Danni didn't want to deal with your grumpy morning ass, so I came on my own. I have food, Jen, come on."

Jensen sighs, hanging up before cracking the door open to allow minimal sunlight in, and Chris shoulders his way in with his bagel box or whatever it is. There's two people too much in Jensen's apartment at the moment, and Jensen feels strangely dwarfed even though Chris is more or less his height. He escapes into the bathroom, quickly brushes his teeth, and heads back out to the kitchen. 

"Food," he mumbles as he plunders the box and reemerges with two bagels and a little container of that unbelievable hazelnut cream cheese thing. It's kind of an ugly color, even though it tastes amazing. 

"So, colors, right?" There's a smile in Chris's voice, and Jensen's head snaps back up.

"Oh my god!" He says, kind of chagrined that he hadn't even looked properly at his best friend; he'd been too busy admiring the black poppy seeds in the yellow round of the bagel. Chris's hair was dark, a brown that verged on black, and his eyes were bright blue, almost like Jared's friend's. "I gotta admit, Chris. You're one good-looking SOB."

"Your sweet talk needs work, Ackles." Chris grunts, watching Jensen spreading the bagel. "So is that the kid, then?"

"No," Jensen says, unable to help being a sarcastic piece of crap. "That's the hooker I hired last night." 

"Looks like your sweet talk isn't the only thing that needs work." Chris gives Jared a once-over. "Cute. Have you decided what to do with him yet?"

Jensen's head rocks from side to side reluctantly. "Gonna take him to the hospital when he wakes up, and then..." He trails off helplessly, his shoulders jerking into a shrug. "He's a good kid, y'know? And he keeps thanking me... Probably doesn't know how much he's guilt-trippin' me." 

Jared, speak of the devil is more or less suffocating the pillow he's wrapped around, and his lower lip is still hanging open endearingly. 

"Jensen...." Chris rubs the back of his neck. "Have you maybe considered-"

"Yes." Jensen stiffens, his hands shoved into his sweatpants. "Look, Chris, I'm an author. It's not a very steady job. I just can't afford to build a life for both of us, y'know? And if something happens to me, Jared will get kicked right back onto the streets." 

Chris surveys him, deadpanning a, "So are you sure it's not about your blatant fear of commitment and nervousness that you're never going to be good enough for anyone you date?" 

Jensen splutters long enough to verify Chris's statement. 

"Somehow, I don't think Jared's gonna judge you for anything, Jensen." 

Jensen sits on his bed, chewing slowly on his bagel. "It's a little bit of everything," he admits in a small voice, clearing his throat as he moves towards Jared but refrains from touching him. "Is that-- selfish? I know he's a great kid, but... He is  homeless _."_

Chris takes a swig from a can of root beer that he no doubt stole from Jensen's fridge. "It's not that selfish," he admits. "But giving him a chance isn't going to kill you," he adds, "Kid could always get a job. I'm fairly certain that if you give Jared a chance, he'll be worth your while." 

Jensen considers this, but it isn't the first time. He'd already thought about this, at least four of five times- taking Jared in, finding him a job in the bookstore, and then letting things fall into place. "He deserves a chance, doesn't he?" he sighs, scrubbing a hand over the shadow of stubble lining his jaw and gazing his still unconscious soulmate.

"He's your soulmate, but... Yeah, he does." Chris says with a small grin. "And before you ask her, Danni agrees with me." At Jensen's unimpressed eyebrow, Chris goes on to add, "We considered all possible outcomes while you were with Jared at the hospital, and miracle of all miracles-- we agreed on this."

"I would say mind your own business, but--"

"--In Danneel's words, your business is our business." Chris fuckin' chirps, and then moves for the door when Jared stirs as though he's about to wake up. "Look, I don't need to be here when you guys talk. Work it out, Jensen. You deserve to be happy too, you know." And then he's gone before Jensen can call him out for being a sap. 

On cue, Jared wriggles, his mile-long legs tangled in the blankets and stirs; he apparently forgets where he is for a moment, because his eyes widen almost comically, and he ends up scrambling, and then, all too quickly for Jensen to comprehend and stop him, he ends up falling off the bed with a massive thud.

"Ow," Jared says dryly, and Jensen just stares at him, in a bundle at his feet, and cracks up. He can't stop laughing, and he doesn't know why; Jared looks so confused, and now he's started pouting, which just makes the scene all that much funnier. Plus, the kid looks like he's wrapped in a cocoon.  

"Here," Jensen manages through a snort, offering Jared his hand. Red splashes across his cheeks and nose, and Jensen thinks his heart has possibly missed a beat. Or two. Or seven. The limber fingers almost cautiously wraps around Jensen's, and he pulls the taller male to his feet. "You alright there?"

"Whenever you're done laughing," Jared says. His voice is pissy, but he's got a smile on his face, and his dimples are winking at Jensen. He looks back at the bed and gestures to it with an almost shy little wave. "Thanks, um... For letting me sleep here again. I really appreciate it."

"Course," Jensen says hastily. "The bathroom is open, if you want to brush and shower- I should have a spare unopened one beneath the sink. Oh, and go ahead and help yourself to a bagel if you want it. There's this hazelnut cream cheese that I'm obsessed with, you should try it." Jared looks like he's precariously close to crying again, so Jensen shoos him into the bathroom. 

After he finishes his bagel, he calls up the hospital to let them know that he and Jared are coming in, and then he can't resist going to take a look at the covers of his books. His series of about six books, revolving around rebels in the subgenre of steampunk fantasy, have always had intricate, pretty covers that he's only seen the outlines of. Now, as he extracts them from their slots in the casing Adrianne gifted him with for his last birthday, his breath catches. The gears and machinery are in that same glittering color he feels has to be gold, and the ribbons looping beneath the blue, calligraphed title are silver. There's a sort of brown, sort of red color that Jensen doesn't recognize that splashes across the background. They're unbelievably beautiful. 

He resists the urge to hug them, and he's only just finished admiring the last one when Jared peers past the door. Jensen makes both the mistake of looking at him and then looking at him for much longer than necessary. Jared's awkwardly swathed in the towel, drops of water rolling down the planes of his skin and plastering his hair to his cheeks and forehead. He looks fuckin' beautiful, and Jensen wonders, in a moment of startling clarity, if this is the sight that would greet him every day if he pulled Jared into his life. If it is, it's going to be very hard to dissuade his brain from the idea.  

"Huh?" his mouth says, while he just continues to look at Jared.

"Um," Jared shifts his weight with a nervous, little smile. Kind of like he knows Jensen's a bona fide weirdo. "Well, my clothes are drying in front of the heater, can you please pass them to me?" 

Jensen glances at them and shakes his head. "Nope. We're going to be washing those. I'm sure I have a pair of jeans and a shirt that I've never worn since they're too big for me. Wait here." He says, completely derailing Jared's protests. 

In a few moments, he's thrusting a pair of jeans and a t-shirt at Jared and trying not to look at him, which just makes him hand it off to the left a little. Jared thankfully takes them, looking perplexed and kind of sheepish, but Jensen honestly doesn't care that he's giving Jared clothes. He's never worn them before, probably won't wear them ever, and besides... He kind of wants Jared to have nicer and warmer clothes.

"Are you sure?" Jared asks for the fifteenth time as he stands in front of Jensen with the short-sleeved, button-down plaid just a bit big for his slender frame and jeans that still come a bit short. Jensen flicks a brief, appreciative glance over the kid, taking a moment to watch Jared's hair curl up against his forehead and around his ears. 

"Yes, Jared, I'm positive." He says with a sigh, pushing the tag sticking out of the back of the kid's collar back into the shirt and feeling Jared stiffen just a tiny bit at the touch. "Here." He pushes a bagel slathered in cream cheese at the kid, and Jared's dimples make an appearance again as he dives into it. 

"Mmh," he makes a sound that's bordering on so blatantly sexual that Jensen's stomach tightens. "This is  _so_ good," Jared says through his mouthful of bagel. "Ohmygod, Jensen." He takes another massive bite, and Jensen grins as he swipes the crumbs from his lips. "Is this the hazelnut stuff? I have to have Chad try th--" Jared comes to an abrupt stop, and Jensen's smile falls a little flat as the kid goes quiet.

"Hey, whenever you're done," Jensen says, rubbing the back of his neck. "I already told the hospital we're on our way, so..." 

"Yeah," Jared says quietly, using his tongue to chase the extra cream cheese. Jensen determinedly doesn't stare at him (too much). The kid washes his hands and towels them off, carding one of them automatically through his rapidly drying hair.

"We good?" Jensen raises an eyebrow, wincing when Jared bites his lip in apparent distress. 

"I'm ready," he says, swallowing. "Let's go." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jensen doesn't know how to make decisions.


	4. Brown like Bread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the lovely trendykitty, who bid on me. Thanks, bb! <3

Jared's sitting in the waiting room, cradling the glittering Coke can, and he doesn't know what to do. Other than admire that bright, shiny red in his hands, something equivalent to treasure to Jared. Something Jensen bought him. 

Jensen's gone to talk to the doctor, Jared apparently far too inexperienced to understand what the doctor was saying. Or, at least, Jensen's too nice to actually say that, but Jared has a feeling that that's what is implied. Maybe Jensen and the doctor aren't judging him, but they should be. Jared still doesn't know what's happening to Chad, despite the doctor having told them just yesterday. Jared knows his limits. He knows what he can do. And this? He can't do a single thing.

Jensen pushes the doors to the ER open and steps out, a reflexive, placating smile crossing his face as Jared scrambles to his feet. He watches with no small amount of trepidation as Jensen joins him on the bench.

"So?" He breathes anxiously, and Jensen sighs, combing his hand through his ... yellow-brown hair. Jared isn't quite sure of the shades, thanks to his knowing only the basic colors, but the yellow isn't garish; it's softer and blending into the darks of his hair. Even looking tired, Jensen's almost unfairly beautiful. His eyes focus on Jared's, his lower lids outlined with soft purple smudges, and his mouth quirks into a smile. Jared's stomach plunges with guilt; he must be the reason Jensen looks so tired. 

"He's gonna be okay, Jay." Jensen says, and Jared's heart does that weird little swivel when he hears the affectionate, almost childish nickname. "But we can't see him yet. We can go see him tomorrow. Or later today." Relief streams through his veins as he learns of Chad's improved condition, and he closes his eyes. 

Jared nods, still cupping the cold can. "Then..." He whispers, the thought of Chad lying fragile and limp and alone in the hospital bed causing his stomach to lurch. He wipes his eyes with a patchy sleeve and clears his throat, grateful when Jensen averts his eyes. "Um, can you take me back to the street? Ch-Chad's soulmate, Sophia... She's probably worried. Y'know? I, I should tell her he's okay."

Jensen nods slowly, chewing his lip distractingly. "Yeah, of course, Jared." He stands, and Jared follows the movement. "You didn't drink even a sip of your Coke," he adds, and Jared looks down at the can listlessly. "I can buy you water or something if you don't like Coke."

Don't like Coke. Jared laughs at how ridiculous it is, but quickly quiets down because he doesn't want to seem like he's laughing at Jensen's offer, or at Jensen at all. Besides, the laughter goes a little hysterical at the end. "No, that's not- I like it fine. It's just that I'm feeling kind of sick, and ... I'm sorry if it seems like I'm wasting it, it's just... Chad." 

"I don't feel like you're wasting it," Jensen assures. "I mean, it's just a dolla-" he stops, cringes, but Jared can't bring himself to be offended right now. Not after everything Jensen's done for him. He smiles at Jensen, storing the Coke away into one of his giant pockets.

"It's okay, I'll drink it later." He says as he gets into the passenger seat of Jensen's car. The car smells like musky leather, and Jared has seen the model before; he couldn't name it if he tried, though. It's sleek and black and it looks a bit dated, and Jensen pats it affectionately on the hood before climbing in.

"1967 Chevy Impala," he says proudly, and Jared smiles like he understands. "She's a pretty thing, isn't she?"

Jared doesn't want to admit that he's one of those people who doesn't understand why guys like cars so much to the point where they use pronouns other than 'it' to refer to them, so he just nods with a smile. Jensen's enthusiasm is pretty cute, and Jared's finding it hard to look away from how delighted he looks with himself and his car. 

"I, I meant to ask more about what you do..." He says instead, sort of shy again. Jensen's his soulmate; he wants to know as much as there is to know about him. "Some of the books in your place had your name on them, so..."

"Oh, yeah, I'm an author. I write about teenage rebellion, y'know. The popular thing these days." Jensen waves his hand dismissively, looking a little surprised. Maybe he'd thought Jared couldn't read, which Jared understands, but... It still kind of stings. He wishes he had more than literacy to prove that he actually was as capable as someone who wasn't homeless, but... He'd been young, about twelve when he'd lost his family, and over the next few years, he hadn't really had a chance to educate himself any more and had lost his existing skills.

After all, when you had a pretty face, who cared if you couldn't multiply for shit?

When Chad and Mae had entered Jared's life, though, they'd been offended by his shitty perspective on life and had promised him that they were gonna make him see differently. Mae was already in the process of teaching Chad and Chad's soulmate, Sophia, and she had decided that Jared could be both pretty and literate. And once Jared had grasped a pretty decent command of the English language, Mae went on to teach him the little math she knew. They'd saved him, honestly.

Jared realizes a little too soon that he's just been lost in reverie and quickly goes, "Yeah, I thought as much. I mean not about the teenage rebellion, but about the author thing." He smiles a little to cover his stumbling idiocy. "That's really cool... So that means you were writing before you could see colors?" 

Jensen's smile wanes a little. "Yeah... Yeah, I was writing before I could see colors. It was pretty frustrating, y'know, trying to describe things without them. Now that I have the vision, I... I can describe things so much better." His voice grows suddenly wistful, and Jensen angles his head to give the other a curious look. "In one of my books, I have a mechanical dragon burst through a stained glass window in a church. Without colors, it was just... 'The dragon crashed through, littering pieces of glass to the ground.' But now..." Jensen's tone shifts into something dramatic and slightly awestruck. "'The dragon burst through the window, shards of rose and merlot and marigold, all glittering like a spectrum, sweeping across the floor.'"

Jared, who still hasn't had the time to identify the shades, has little idea of what the colors rose, merlot, and marigold are. But the way Jensen describes the new scene causes him to shiver a little. He gazes at his soulmate with a newfound awe.

"What?" Jensen laughs, looking slightly uncomfortable and yet pleased at the same time.

"Y-You're a wordsmith!" Jared blurts out, gazing at Jensen. His cheeks flush when the words tumble out, but he keeps steady eye contact, unwilling to take what he'd said back.

"Yeah, I guess..." Jensen rolls one shoulder up into an easy, graceful shrug. "I mean, I am an author."

Jared shakes his head. "It's different from being an author," he says, one hand tucked against his pocket and fingers steadily freezing from the chill of the Coke can. "You say the words like they're music. Like you're singing them." The only other person who he's ever heard weave melody into their words like that is Mae, Mae with her rich, romantic stories of a life before America. She'd spin fanciful stories of her travels to the most beautiful places in Europe, the way she blushed and flirted and giggled in a gondolier as she was swept down the canals of Venice by her beau. "Jensen, you talk like you love your words." 

Jensen looks even more embarrassed at this, and he fidgets and adjusts his glasses before averting his eyes from Jared. "They're my best friends," he admits, smiling almost sheepishly before the soft look vanishes into something a little more grounded. "And since I'm stuck with them, and all, I sort of have to love them."

"Not necessarily." Jared smiles, his legs having found their way on the seat as he folded in like an awkward pretzel to shield himself from the cold. "When you talk about your stories and your words and your new ability to write, you... You look like a kid in a candy store. Excited and eager and hungry." 

"Okay, okay." Jensen combs a hand through his spiky hair, looking undeniably pleased before he huffs in Jared's direction. "You don't have to compliment me so much, y'know... I mean, I don't dislike you that much."  

Jared backpedals, stung. "I'm not complimenting you to make you want me." 

"I know, I know." Jensen assures, teeth curling over his bottom lip. "It's a silly thing to say, but ... I just feel like you think I hate you. Which I don't. It's just that..."

Jared's starting to feel a little hysterical again. "Jensen, I get it, really." He hurries, rubbing his gloved hands together, not sure if his heart can take yet another rejection. "You don't have to explain this to me. I get it." 

Jensen pulls up to the side of the road and parks in front of the meter, gazing intently at Jared. "I don't think you do," he says gently, and Jared feels suddenly trapped even as he fumbles for the door clumsily. "Jared, it's just not about the homelessness. I mean a big part is about that, but..." He folds his hands. "If we do decide to be together, I can't really support the both of us."

Jared's brain gets caught up in 'together' and forgets to move on to the rest of the sentence. "Huh?" 

"A writer's salary is really, really fickle." Jensen reiterates. "It means that if the book does well, I'm getting a lot more than if it sucks. If it's like book three, the worst so far in the series, it means that I'm not going to be paid as much. And we'll both suffer. My salary isn't really enough to run on, especially if we're living together. Hell, it's almost barely enough for me. If we're going to be together, Jared..." Jensen hesitates, seems to firm his resolve, and gazes at Jared evenly. "....Then you probably need to find a job."

\---

Jared mulls over Jensen's words as they head down the staircase to their little alcove. In a way, Jensen's not  _wrong,_ and, in fact, was pretty tactful in telling Jared that he would be pretty much leaning on Jensen were he to live with him. Besides, Jared doesn't  _want_ to lean on Jensen, he wants to contribute. But it's a vicious cycle- to get a job, he needs experience, and he can't have experience unless he has a job. The logic of it has always stumped him, but unless he somehow breaks out of the loop, he's stuck.

Theoretically, he could volunteer until he's offered a job, but the likelihood that Jensen will still want him after so long is slim. Or maybe Jared's just underestimating him. Jensen's been nice to him this long, maybe he could fix Jared with a job.

"Jared!" 

Sophia's reedy voice, shrill with excitement, echoes in the air as she launches for him. He scoops her into a hug reflexively, her much shorter height dwarfed into his as her brown hair fans out in an arc behind her. Her mouth is chilly against Jared's cheek, and she looks nervous but elated to see him as she stands there in one of Chad's ratty but favorite coats. "Where is he? Is he okay?" 

"Yeah, Soph." Jared kisses her bangs, hand pressed against the back of her head soothingly. "He's gonna be okay. I take it the colors are back?"

Sophia smiles, radiantly, beaming with relief, and Jared can't help but smile back. She's a beautiful young woman, and Chad's always told Jared that she's far too good for him. She's smart and brazen and complements Chad perfectly, balancing his dry humor with her easy smiles. She turns it onto Jensen, next, who looks distinctly discomfited as he plunges his hands into his pockets.

"Thank you, too," she says sincerely, reaching out to squeeze his pocketed wrist, and a touch of color eases along Jensen's cheeks as he slowly draws the hand out. 

"Just doing what any human being would do." he responds, sounding a touch gruff with embarrassment at the attention, and Sophia shakes her head with a sparkling little laugh. She's full of color, from the red in the apples of her cheeks to the brown of her hair, and Jared remembers, once again, that he hasn't even spent enough time appreciating his friends.

"That's not true," she admonishes. "This is New York. People don't usually care, but you do, so thank you. Thank you." She lets go of his hand and gestures out back towards the shelter a little further in. "Um... We're just about to eat, actually, and... Well..." 

Jared suddenly feels a little mortified. "U-Um, Jensen, you don't have to stay. I-It's fine, really. You can go." Sophia purses her lips but doesn't interrupt, fully aware that the idea and standards of 'eating' differ between Jared and Jensen. "Really." he assures to the frowning man, who's still looking about the ramshackle wasteland of boxes. 

"Huh? No, it's fine." Jensen's shoulders relax. "Jared, if we're soulmates, I should know about your way of life."

It's a fair point, but Jared doesn't want Jensen to eat the food they find in dumpsters behind snazzy restaurants. So he slowly shakes his head, kind of nudging Jensen away. 

"It's fine," he protests, "Jensen, really, it's not what you're used to." Jensen keeps trying to hold his ground, and Jared's starting to get nervous from how obstinate the other is. "Come on, just go home. It's-"

"Jared, I'm not ashamed by you." 

Jared stops trying to push at Jensen, his lip trembling from the self-loathing threatening to swamp and swallow him whole as he looks down at the ground. 

"Seriously." Jensen says, gently reaching over to pat Jared's hands where they've closed into loose fists. "I know what I expect, and you don't have to worry about me judging you. How you live your life isn't my call. People survive in different ways." The sympathy in Jensen's voice is genuine, but it invokes some sort of sharp nausea in Jared's gut. God, he is  _so_ ashamed. He wasn't, before- He and Sophia had made a game out of it, trying to see who could find the tastiest food. Extra points if it was Indo-Chinese, their favorite. Mae always said it made her feel like she was forty years younger, like the heat of the food melted away the age of her paper skin. But right now, Jared's.... He's embarrassed with the way they live, and the fact that he's embarrassed makes him feel _worthless._ Especially when he thinks of Chad and Mae and Sophia and how much they helped him. 

He, of all people, has only ever relied on the kindness of strangers.  

His mouth twists into something sorrowful and trembling, but he's got to make a decision. He can either let Jensen into his life, help him understand, or he can close the other's eyes. Not concern him with this life.

In the end, it's Sophia who makes the decision for him.

"Come on," she says, evidently startling Jensen as she wraps her hand around his. Her cheeks are still flushed from the cold, but for once, she looks happy and warm under Chad's patchwork coat, and there's really no denying her when she feels this good. "I found  _a ton_ of fresh baked bread. Seriously. Garbage bag stacked with loaves." Before Jensen seems to catch on, she's dragging him back towards the shelter, and Jared's following helplessly.

"Um, the bread is usually a bit off, you know?" he tells Jensen as Sophia yanks him along. "I mean, it's sometimes flat, or a little burnt, or lacking salt or sugar. But they're still really good, and ... it's worth it. To dive, I mean." He lowers his voice, averting his eyes a little from Jensen's. "We usually dive every few days, because if you're good at it and you don't make a mess, they leave the dumpsters open. Sometimes, you've got a few dipshits who throw food and stuff all over the ground, which is bad for business, so they close them down."

"Happened to my favorite Italian joint," Sophia rails, sulking. "Some stinker threw all the plastic wrappers and Styrofoam boxes all over the ground, so now they've bolted the dumpsters."  

"Grocery stores are really good, especially the organic ones," Jared says in an almost shy whisper, and Jensen looks back at him with blatant interest. "They toss out some really delicious fruit sometimes, and even though the vegetables get a little mushy, if you're patient, you can peel off all the wilted and bad lettuce leaves to get to the good stuff underneath." 

"Sounds like..." Jensen hesitates, choosing his words carefully as Sophia leads him into the shelter where Mae's already seated and chewing. "...You guys really try to make the most out of everything."

"I guess you could say we appreciate how much food New Yorkers waste the most," Sophia joked, pushing Jensen's shoulders so he stumbled down onto a box with a slight  _oomph._ "But sometimes, you know, the food's really good. Like tonight. We're gonna have plenty, and we'll even have extra for Chad when he comes back, he won't mind a bit of stale bread." She adds breezily, and Jared digs through the garbage bag for his favorite type of bread- the cinnamon-swirl loaf studded with raisins and nuts. The breads are all pleasant browns, which Jared has to admit he hadn't assumed. Then again, he hadn't really had an assumption any which way. Bread might have been purple to him for all he'd known. The cinnamon-swirl loaf is the most colorful one, to his delight, studded with little reds and oranges. 

"Here," he says, tossing a loaf of cheesy, garlicky-smelling bread over to Jensen. Jensen catches it with a bit of a bewildered blink, peering down through his glasses at it, and then gives him a sort of hesitant look. But Jared's kind of realizing that he doesn't mind Jensen's slight standoffishness. "Dunno what that kind of bread is called, but it's pretty good- and the cheesy breads should probably go the first night. And... It's perfectly good to eat, by the way. It's not good for the customers or business, but it's pretty much first-rate for us." He waves his loaf at Jensen. "Go on, try it."

Jensen looks down at the bread, sniffs it once, almost delicately, and then hesitantly takes a bite. Chews, swallows, looks fairly surprised. And then goes in for another bite. "Dude!" he exclaims, looking pleased. "This is Asiago cheese! I love this stuff." 

_Asiago,_ Jared mouths. It sounds like something Jensen would like.

"I mean it's a bit stiff, the cheese is kinda burnt, but it's  _really_ good. For being in a garbage bag in a dumpster." Jensen confesses, and Jared can't stop smiling. "Okay, but I have a question." He waggles his bread towards Jared with a bit of a frown. "No offense, but if you find food in the dumpsters, why did you steal from me to buy food?" 

Jared blushes, and Sophia seems suddenly preoccupied with her own bread. Mae is chewing away, loud yet unobtrusive, staring at something only she can see in the sky- or at least what's visible through the holes in the sloppy tarp. "Um... Some days, when it's really cold, we steal instead of diving..." He says, looking down, "We don't like diving when it gets so damn cold. Everyone's looking for food so they don't starve when it gets too cold to go out at all, and there's too much competition."

"Jared got ripped into by a maniac with a screwdriver once," Sophia says quietly, and Jared nods, lifting his shirt a bit to reveal a thin scar that trails from the bottom of his ribcage to just a bit above his pants. It's one of many. 

Jensen seems fixated on his scar for a moment, his expression slipping into something Jared can't place, before he looks away, flushing a little. "That sounds really dangerous, yeah." He says, a bit strained, through his teeth. "I hope you're not doing that anymore."

"Nah, I learned my lesson." Jared rubs the back of his head, and the tension from Jensen's shoulders melts away very slightly. "We all kinda learned that we can't compete with others when we dive. Sometimes, on slightly warmer nights, we share, or trade, with people we meet at the dumpsters. But we rarely fight, and if it seems like there's going to be a confrontation, we hold our ground- verbally. But if it seems like they're going to try to fight, or do something violent and uncalled for... We give the food up. It's not worth it getting hurt over some guy who wants the leftover pizza you're holding." He chews on his bread for a second.

"You're right," Jensen says, surprisingly firm. "That's a good way of handling things. It's definitely  _not_ worth it for any of you to get hurt like that, especially when y'all have less resources to take care of yourself if you  _do_ get hurt. You could have died from tetanus if the screwdriver was dirty, Jay." he adds on fiercely, and though Jared doesn't really know what tetanus is, he can assume. He'd had vaccines as a kid, but he'd never gone back to have them administered again.

"Exactly," Sophia says through a mouthful of bread. "And besides, we've gone a few days without eating. It's a group effort. Any extra scraps go to Mae, because she's the one who needs the energy the most." Mae blinks in acknowledgement before humming a lost tune below her breath and resuming her staring at the hidden stars. "After the worst of the storms are over, we're diving again."

"But the storms can last up to a week," Jensen says in sort of a whisper, holding tightly onto his bread. "You guys choose to starve like that, in the cold, for a week?"  

"It's not so bad, Jen." Jared reassures, concerned by Jensen's nail marks in the bread. "I usually go out when it gets real cold, check the forecasts on the local TVs through the glass. If a storm's coming, Sophia and I go out and get as much as we can, and we splurge. Kinda like building up the reserve before we go a while without eating."  

"Water?" Jensen asks, his voice still caught in that whispery tone. This one's a bit harder. 

"We..." Jared hesitates. "There's a local shelter that gives out some water bottles, and Soph and I go about once a week or so, if we can. They give us two bottles, and ... Well, in the winter, admittedly, we fill bottles with snow and use that as water." He shrugs. "Not exactly sanitary, but... It's the best we can do if we don't want to shrivel from dehydration. As it gets warmer, we sometimes use rain, sometimes wheel Chad up and out of here so we can get three bottles of water instead of two. And of course, the food has water."  

"Fuck," Jensen says quietly, sounding both awed and impressed. "But it gets so  _cold,_ Jared. It gets so cold..." He trails off, his expression tight and pinched and full of appreciation. Jared doesn't really know how he feels about it. "I just don't like to think of y'all freezing out here like that, alone, huddled together..." He says, almost absently.

"You make us out to be like a documentary, Jen." Jared laughs. "We don't huddle in like that. Chad smells." Sophia elbows him in the ribs, and he makes a big deal of whining before adding in a reluctant, "Okay, he doesn't smell that bad. And we do huddle, sometimes. But it's not so bad, you know? We've gotten used to it." The real truth is, New York can be dreadfully, bitterly cruel in its cold. There were some days that were so cold that Jared was surprised they didn't leave them all dead of hypothermia. But he's not going to complain, especially when Jensen already looks so disturbed.

"Huh." His soulmate says, taking another bite of bread, and then sort of rests his chin in his palm to tilt his head at Jared. "You're ... Pretty resilient, Jared. Strong." Then he smiles- a small smile, but albeit a smile -in a way that sort of reminds Jared of a flower blooming. "It's a great quality to have." 

Jared's breath hitches, and he gazes at Jensen for a second before promptly stuffing himself with bread so he's spared the embarrassment of spluttering out a lame response. He's even redder, now, and it's certainly not because of the chill; it's because Jensen keeps saying things that make it real hard for him to reel his own heart in. Fuck's sake. He crunches through some walnuts and licks his lips before huddling deeper into his coat. "And you... You're." He stops, swallows, looks up at Jensen. "You're really brave for wanting to know about our lives. I mean, most people would have just turned their heads away, not wanted to try the food, but you're... You're pretty, uh, okay." He coughs, suddenly feeling like his awkward 12-year-old self. 

Sophia smiles. "He's right, you know," she says gently, and Jensen looks down, looking almost chastised. "You're on pretty good terms with me right now, hon. Saving my- Chad, trying to understand how Jared lives... Not bad." 

"When I first met my Simon," Mae says into the brief silence, in a whisper of a voice, "He was selling flowers in Florence." She giggles helplessly, still in love years after Simon's death. It's a story Jared's heard many, many times, but it never fails to make him cry; Simon froze to death during the first winter of his and Mae's homelessness. "I used to buy one everyday." She murmurs, taking a breath as she drums her fingers on the bread. "A white iris. And he would sing to me. He was terrible at singing." She waves her bread at Jensen, smiling with a soft fondness at him. "I was so rich, back then- my daddy used to work in oil, but I fell in love with my little flower boy."  

Jared exhales out through his teeth, swallowing. He knows what May is telling Jensen, but he doesn't want Jensen to feel coerced into falling for him- what would be the point of that? "Her story is .... Amazing," he says instead, quietly, and Jensen's eyes flicker to his. "If you're as much of a reader as a writer. Or... A listener." His cheeks redden yet again, seeing as he can't seem to talk like a fucking normal person. "A-Anyway." 

They eat in silence for a few more minutes, before Jensen glances down at his watch and pops the last torn cube of bread into his mouth. "Jared, we should head back," he says, brushing crumbs from his thin jacket and adjusting his glasses. "I, um, have to meet with Chris and Danneel tonight, I promised them." He smiles, albeit sheepishly, and God, Jared really  _loves_ that smile. "They really want to meet you, too." 

Jared's smile flips. "Er."

"C'mon, now that's just not fair." Jensen berates, but he's smiling. "If I'm meeting all your friends, then you're sort of obliged to meet mine, aren't you?" It's pretty sound logic. If Jensen can come down here and eat burnt bread with Sophia and Mae, Jared can go meet Jensen's friends. He can be civilized, act like he knows what he's doing... Oh, God, what if they're critical? He knows some New Yorkers don't mean to be, that they're simply a bit put off by Jared's less than refined appearance, but sometimes it hurts. A lot. And after Jensen's initial rejection, Jared's kind of terrified of facing even more of that said rejection from his friends. 

"Okay," he says anyway, dry-throated, because really... What choice does he have? "I- Um. That's fair." Unfortunately. If all goes well, Jensen's friends will be as understanding as he is as of now- which, honestly, would be a very welcome break for Jared. 

"Good," Jensen says warmly, then proceeds to give Jared a bit of a heart attack when he reaches out to grasp his hand. "Come on, then." Jensen's even worse than Jared is, because where Jared has gloves that are tattered with gaping holes, Jensen's not wearing the damn things at all. Jared frowns, enclosing Jensen's slightly smaller hand in his own, where it hopefully won't do any more freezing, before allowing himself to be led off. He can hear Mae and Sophia giggling behind him like a pair of schoolgirls; his ears burn red as he spins, fixes them with dirty looks, and then follows Jensen up the ramp and back out onto the streets of New York where his car awaits them. "By the way, did you consider what I told you, Jared?" 

Jared startles out of his thoughts about Jensen's hands. "Hm? Um, yeah, I did, yeah. About the job thing? Yeah," he says hastily, wishing his mouth stopped when it reached its quota for repeating the same word over and over. "Er... Anyway. I hate to ask, but, um, do you think... You could maybe recommend a good place for me?" He feels almost ashamed to ask, but .... A job could really help him. No, not only him... It could help Sophia, Chad, and Mae, too. He knows how useless Chad feels sometimes, stuck in his wheelchair with nothing to do quite a bit of the time. When he tentatively looks up, Jensen's smiling almost thoughtfully, and hope flickers like a little light in his stomach. 

"How do you feel about books?" He asks, after a second, and Jared gives him kind of a muddled look. 

"I like them when I can read them," he responds softly, shuffling his feet a little as Jensen leans against the car and rubs his palms together to warm up. He should have worn gloves, and  _why_ do Jensen's gloveless hands bother Jared so much? "Why?" 

"I've got a friend who runs a bookstore where I promote all my work," Jensen responds, opening the car door as Jared crosses over to the other side to get in. Once they're bundled in, with the car steadily warming up, Jensen adds, "Her name's Samantha. Samantha Ferris. She seems real no-nonsense, and I guess she is pretty strict sometimes, but it's all on the surface. Once you gain her trust, she's probably one of the most reliable people you'll ever meet." He pulls out onto the road with an almost cheeky smile, which settles Jared's building nerves for a moment. "She's put me in my spot plenty of times, especially when I really deserve it. And... I think she'd probably hire you." He hesitates for a moment. "She'll make you volunteer for a little while, just to gauge you and see how hard of a worker you are, and if you get her approval... She'll give you the job. Are you up for it?"

It's a little overwhelming, but if he doesn't start somewhere, he'll never get anywhere. "Y-Yeah," he stammers, ducking his head, and he's so grateful that he sort of chokes up for a second, can't speak, can't thank Jensen and fall at his feet and possibly worship him. "Jensen, I-- You don't have to--"

"I know I don't have to." Jensen says gently. "But contrary to what you may think, Jay, I really do want to make this work. And in order to make this work, we have to think about things logically." And then  _he_ looks ashamed, for some bizarre reason. "I-- I wish I made enough to be able to support both of us," he murmurs, and thanks to the glint of his glasses, Jared can't tell where he's looking. And Hell, no, Jensen can't  _honestly_ be- "If I had the capability to do that, Jay, I wouldn't think twice. I'd give you everything." 

Jared feels sort of like he's been sucker-punched. "Uh," he gasps. "That's not. You don't have to apologize for that, Jensen. It's the truth. I've never expected a fairytale ending, I've never thought my soulmate would sweep me off my feet and save me from my homelessness." Jesus, how could Jensen think any of this was  _his_ fault? "You- Please don't apologize for that. We each have our baggage. Except mine is more like a cargo train." He amends, almost thoughtfully. "I- I don't  _want_ everything from you. In fact, I feel much better getting a job than just mooching off of you." And it's the truth.

Jensen clears his throat, adjusts his glasses again. Stares at the road for a few moments. "Okay," he whispers. "If you say so."

"I say so." Jared says firmly. And hell, no, this is not up for discussion. "I don't expect anything from you. Hell- I'm just grateful you want to give this a try. Because what you said before, about us living our separate lives-- I thought that was the end. And-"

"And I was an idiot. And that was an idiotic thing to say," Jensen sort of babbles. "I don't know what I was thinking. Because I do. Want you as a soulmate, I mean. So just- disregard that I said that. Because it was kind of stupid." Jared just stares at him, and good lord, he's gone for this man. He's so in love. God help him. "I want to make this work. I'll talk to Sam, okay?"

"Okay," Jared whispers, and he wants to kiss the man.

God help  _him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO DID RESEARCH? That's right, I did. I researched dumpster diving. It's actually fascinating, for those who are interested. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! :D Sorry for the delay! :)
> 
> P.S.- Yes, that is a Tennessee Williams quote. I regret very little.


	5. Red Like a Diner Seat

Jared's hands are really cold.

 

Jensen's kneeling beside him, brushing frost from his cheeks and his hair, absent as the other shivers under his fingers. Snow fringes his eyelashes. He's beautiful but freezing and Jensen has no time, no way of protecting him from the cold. 

 

He's like a frozen Sleeping Beauty, but no kiss is going to wake him up. Jensen has failed him, Jensen hadn't been there for him, and now Jared's going to die. Colors flicker in and out, leaving Jensen falling into a gray-scale tundra, falling, falling...

 

He wakes with a start to the sound of Danneel's loud cackle from the kitchen, or sort of kitchen, and the sound of Jared giggling hesitantly. He scrubs a hand over his face, moves to get up, wonders what the hell happened and why he's having weird ass dreams about Jared dying in his arms. He attributes it to his morbid imagination for now, stumbles out of the bed, and slides on his slippers before padding towards the voices.

 

"Sleeping Beauty has arisen!" Dani crows from her perch on the barstool. She's holding a glass of wine or something between her manicured fingernails, and Chris looks away from Jared and towards him instead with a self-satisfied smirk.

 

"Yeah, he was awoken by the wicked witch's cackling," Jensen shoots back, grumpy, and glanced at the clock. It's like eight in the evening, which really kind of fucks him up for a second. His voice rises above Dani's protests as he looks back at Jared again. "What happened?"

 

Jared smiles a bit, his cheeks flushed red either from happy drunkenness, laughter, or embarrassment. "Well... We got back a few hours ago, and you said you needed a nap before these two arrived. They came about an hour ago but I didn't want to wake you up."

 

"Good thing you didn't," Chris shakes his head. "This one needs his beauty sleep, or he starts pitching bitchfits like you wouldn't believe." So this is the route his friends are taking, the tell-Jensen's-potential-soulmate-everything-embarrassing-ever route. But Jared doesn't look bothered, only smiley, and he pats the seat next to him for Jensen to sit down.

 

Jensen snatches a bottle and pads over, gratefully sitting down, and his jeans stretch uncomfortably. Oh, why the fuck did he go to sleep in jeans. "Alright, spill, you two." He says after a drink that washes away the taste of sleep. "What have you been saying about me?"

 

"Nothing incriminating," Chris assures, flashing him a shit-eating grin. "We wanted to wait until we could see your reaction."

 

Wonderful.

 

Jared's holding his Coke from earlier, which has to have lost its fizz, but Jensen doesn't have the heart to tell him as much. He knows how Jared feels about him spending money for him, and he has this feeling pointing out the Coke will only embarrass him. He just cradles his own bottle and flips Chris off. "You've got nothing on me, peasant." He challenges, squinting, and tries to pat down his sleep-tousled hair while simultaneously shaking off that groggy feeling.

 

Chris smiles. It's not a nice smile.

 

"Alright, alright, before you two get into your little pissing contest, I wanna talk," Danneel interrupts, rolling her eyes. 

 

"That's all you ever do," Jensen mutters, jamming his glasses onto his face, and Danneel throws an ice cube at him.

 

"Just wanted to ask you two about your plans," she reiterates, looking between them. Jared's smile wanes a little, but he at least doesn't look all that discomforted. He glances at Jensen first, taking a sip of his flat soda, before shrugging in a way that leaves the responsibility of answering on Jensen's shoulders. Great.

 

"Well..." He leans forward, adjusting his jeans with a pout. "Jared and I are gonna go see Sam at the bookstore tomorrow afternoon, we're gonna talk to her about setting up a job."

 

Jared acquiesces with a nod. "We're trying to make it work out," he assures, sipping at his soda some more before placing the can down on the counter top. "I... I know circumstances haven't exactly been on my side, but I want this to work out with Jensen. He's already been so nice, I..." He smiles at Jensen, and Jensen can't help but smile back when he sees the pretty dimples. 

 

He's got this bad feeling about whatever Jared didn't share with him earlier; Jared had stopped talking about his past at Jensen's insistence, hadn't revealed what took place after he had been unable to find any members of his family. But Jensen didn't think it was hard to figure out what could've happened, judging by that haunted fracture in Jared's expression every time the train of thought came by the station. 

 

"Jared, you're staying the night, right?" he asks, and Jared lifts his slightly lethargic gaze from the Coke can with surprise. 

 

"Oh, I can?" he echoes, sounding nervous as he looks back at the bed. 

 

"Yeah, I'll take the couch. And I don't want to hear anything about you taking the couch, alright? You're my guest." Jensen says firmly, when Jared starts to protest, and the other flusters a little bit. "If you want to shower or anything, you should probably do it now."

 

"Jensen takes three hours in the shower," Chris pipes in, because he's a total dick as usual, and Jared sheepishly smiles, darting a glance at Jensen. "You know, he's gotta shave his legs, his arms, his.... torso. If you let him go first, you're probably not gonna get the shower tonight."

 

Danneel laughs almost uproariously. "Though, who knows? Maybe Jared's craving a serving of smooth legs tonight?" She winks at a mortified-looking Jared, definitely kind of tipsy by now, and Jensen rolls his eyes so hard he thinks they might get stuck in his skull.

 

"Alright, you two need to get out." He says firmly, pointing at the door, and the two of them actually listen to him and get out of his apartment, cackling the whole way out. It always feels like Danneel is halfway to drunk, but... She's also the only one with balls enough to come out with it and just ask Jensen what the fuck he's doing. 

 

After they're gone, he closes the door and turns to Jared. "You can borrow my clothes again," he says, flashing Jared what he hopes is a kind smile. "For tonight, I mean. We ought to get you some clothes, too," he added, reaching out to ruffle Jared's hair in an almost careless but fond action. He catches himself at the last second, and then he's gotta reach awkwardly around Jared to adjust something that didn't even need adjusting.

 

Fortunately, Jared doesn't seem to realize what was happening in lieu of freaking out over burdening Jensen. "No! No, I can't- You can't buy me clothes, let me..." He calms down after a moment, chewing on his lip. "I'm going to work.. If I can, and then I'll buy my own clothes. Jensen, I ... I don't want to make you take care of me. I promise I'm going to be self-sufficient." 

 

Something about Jared's tone makes Jensen a little sad.

 

"Hey," he reaches out, lips curving into a reassuring smile, this time actually making contact and patting Jared's hand. "Borrow some of my pajamas for tonight, okay? We'll take you to Sam tomorrow, I'm sure she'll set you up with a job."

 

\--

 

"I don't need any more employees." Sam says, final and stern, and she doesn't seem fazed by the fact that Jared is standing right there with a crestfallen expression. Then again, the puppy dog eyes have never had much of an effect on her at all, and it's usually one of the things Jensen's always loved about her. But right now, it's kind of not working in Jensen's favor. "Honey," she says after a minute, and her voice does soften when she looks at Jared. "I'm sorry. Really, I am. Unfortunately, I've got plenty of people working here already."

 

"Sam-" Jensen says, then turns to flash Jared the expression that says _let me talk to her._ Jared doesn't look all that convinced by Jensen's abilities to sway Sam's mind, but after a moment of hesitation, he heads off toward a quiet reading corner where a few kids are tucked into cushy armchairs with books. Jensen turns back to Sam, leaning in to rest on his elbows, and wears his best dewy eyes. "Sam. _Please_. The kid's living on the fuckin' streets. It's not even a metaphor."

 

This does cause her shoulders to relax a little, some stiffness lost as she chews on her inner cheek. "I get that you want to help him, I do, honey. But I really... I'm really packed here." She shakes her head with a sigh, but her body is slumped, her gestures responsive as she takes Jensen in. "But if you want, I'm close with the guy who runs the diner next door, and I can probably get Jared in as a waiter?"

 

Jensen pulls back, his gaze lowering to the desk as he shakes his head. It's a nice color; if Jensen had to take a guess, it seemed like it was somewhere between red and brown. He really likes these .. blends, like red-brown, green-blue, and whatever Jared's eyes are- they seem to be a myriad of different colors in different lights. "I don't think that'll work, but thanks." He says, feeling quietly dejected on Jared's behalf. It's one thing to search for a job with credentials; it's another to just get a job straight from the streets.

 

"What's he doing?" Sam asks curiously and quite abruptly, looking past Jensen, and Jensen turns to Jared on his belly on the soft jigsaw-puzzle carpet, chatting with another kid. Jensen's not sure what's weird about this, but there's an indiscernible expression on Sam's face that causes his expression to somber.

 

"That kid doesn't talk," she offers at his confusion, nodding her head toward the little boy. "Not to any of us, anyway. We thought he was just shy, but... Y'know, I talked to his dad. His wife passed away recently... That boy's mother. It must hurt like hell." It's her way of offering her sympathies; rough around the edges, but there's kindness there. 

 

"Jared knows a thing or two about that," Jensen says softly in response, his arm resting against the counter as he adjusts his glasses. Something that Jared says coaxes a smile and even a shy giggle from the boy, who points at the book, and Jared leans in to see, then instantly breaks into a warm grin and lightly bumps into the boy's shoulder. It's soft gestures and even softer words; Jensen can't imagine what they're talking about, can't even imagine the level of grief Jared would have to experience to be able to even empathize.

 

"He starts at minimum wage," Sam says quietly, after a minute, and Jensen spins on his heel to look at her. "He seems nice, so I'll mostly have him helping customers out and just being there for them. Don't look at me like that, Jensen," she adds with a huff, which makes him snap his mouth shut. "I'm not heartless, and he's proved himself whether he knows it or not. He'll begin tomorrow." She raps her palms against the counter in a sort of finalizing motion before heading off toward the back door. "Tell him not to be late."

 

It's fantastic news, and Jensen finally feels like _someone_ is on his side. It's a fucking win. He grins at the door for a moment, looking like a creep, and then turns back toward Jared. His grin fades into a smaller smile as he heads over, approaching them from the front so he doesn't spook the two of them, and then lowers into a slight crouch in front of them to adjust his glasses and look down at what the two of them are reading. Jared's looked up by now, but the kid only lifts his head about halfway before quickly lowering it and gripping his book tightly. Jensen's not offended by it, though.

 

"Hey," he says lightly, tapping the book with his knuckles before glancing between them. "What're you two reading?"

 

Jared gets up onto his elbows, sits up, and ruffles the kid's hair. "Alex just got to the face-off between Harry and Voldemort-" 

 

Alex shoves his palm into Jared's elbow, letting out a nervous little huff. "You-Know-Who," he corrects, looking around before gripping the book tightly. "If you say his name, he might ... Find you," he bites his lip, then smiles a little as Jared laughs.

 

"You're right. You-Know-Who." he says, before tugging on one of his curls nervously. "Uh, so ... Jensen... Did I. Did you convince Sam?"

 

Jensen grins, clapping Jared on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble back slightly. "Yeah, you got it. You start tomorrow, man." He sits down on the foam-puzzle floor. "Sam's not merciless; she saw you with.." He tilts his head toward the kid. "Alex, and she thinks you'd be good at talking to customers." 

 

Alex hugs his book close to his stomach as if to bundle it from the outside chill, and then looks up at Jared from beneath the brim of his baseball cap. He kinda looks like how Jared might have looked when he was young, a mess of springy curls spilling out against his neck as he reaches a little hand out to grip Jared's shirt. "You're... Gonna work here? Can you." he gulps, his fingers squeezing a little tighter. "Can you read to me? When I finish Sorcerer's Stone?" 

 

"Yeah," Jared doesn't hesitate, breaking out into a warm, dimpled smile as he ruffles the curls at the base of the boy's neck. "Of course, Alex. I'm starting tomorrow... You can come by whenever you want, and I promise I'll read to you." 

 

Alex smiles again, shyly, darting a glance at Jensen in at least an acknowledging manner, before getting to his feet and waddling over to a man who's just walked in. His father, no doubt, looking wary but somehow relieved when he sees Alex wave to Jared, before they leave. Jensen watches them go, wondering if it's because of Jared that he's started noticing people more intently, but for some reason, it brings in him the urge to write again. Well, that and the colors.

 

"Oh," he says, suddenly realizing, again, that Jared needed clothes. "If you still want to wait until you can buy your own clothes, that's fine," he says, resting a hand against Jared's shoulder and feeling the other's nervous shiver in response. "But my brother, Josh, he's kinda your build and he left some clothes behind the last time he visited. I think you should borrow some of them until you get your first paycheck." He squeezes lightly, prompting a shaky smile from Jared. "Until then, and I don't care what you say," he adds firmly, "You're going to be staying with me." 

 

Jared falters, but at Jensen's insistent glare, he nods. "Okay, yeah. But. I'll sleep on the couch. I don't want to take your bed." 

 

Jensen's not sure why, but it just tumbles out. "Wait, why not just sleep in my bed?" At Jared's surprised, stubborn expression, he quickly plows on. "I mean. Not you, alone. But both of us. In my bed." He rubs his neck, lowering his gaze because he's not sure what expression Jared has on his face- or if he can actually look. "We said we want to try, right? This is me... Trying." 

 

"Yeah," Jared says, after a beat of hesitation, his fingertips brushing against Jensen's jaw and causing him to look up. Jensen's not sure if it's how long he hasn't been in a relationship, but the feeling of Jared's skin against his causes him to shiver a little bit. Jesus Christ. If Jared wasn't his soulmate, Dani and Chris would be on him about getting laid. "But you're not allowed to take me to bed until we go on a lunch date." 

 

It's unexpected and funny, and it catches Jensen off-guard enough to startle a laugh out of him. "You're damn right," he says, and this time he can't help a grin. "We've got to get a burger in you, sweetheart," he adds, because yes, burgers are his idea of the highest standard of living. At least these ones will be. He uncertainly extends a hand toward Jared's, who lets him take it, because it's fucking cold... but also because, well. It's nice. Jensen hasn't held hands with anyone since he awkwardly held a girl's once in high school, and ever since then he's been hovering in the limbo of his commitment-phobia. He mostly slept with a few people, left in the morning before they could wake up, and shamefully ignored any curious follow-up texts.

 

And yeah, part of it was because he hadn't found his soulmate, but plenty of people didn't find their soulmate (and Jensen half expected not to, as well) and adjusted just fine by getting into relationships until either they found their soulmate or got tired of waiting. Having a soulmate was a privilege, and it had roped Jensen, for better or for worse, into a committed relationship. 

 

"Jensen? You're spacing." Jared sounds concerned, but also a little lost as he looks around at the street signs. "Also, I have no idea where we're going, because, well.." He blushes, pulling his frayed beanie down past his ears to keep warm. "I'm more used to the underground city, I- I've never had money to spend on food in restaurants and stuff. Also." He looks embarrassed, now, suddenly tearful, and that immediately snaps Jensen out of his reverie. "I'm. I'm sorry for looking like this, a-and just. Not knowing anything, a-and being just. I guess... Homeless." 

 

"That." Jensen squeezes Jared's hand tightly, enough to get him to turn his head and pay attention. "That is not your fault, Jared. Circumstances just... Worked against you. But you're trying, and that's what's important, okay? You have a job, you're putting in the effort, and that's all that matters." Jared doesn't look convinced, and Jensen kinda feels useless for being a goddamn _writer._ Wordsmith. "When I started writing, I was literally. At my lowest point." He wipes his wrist over his mouth, then glances up at the bell that rings cheerfully when they enter the diner. "I was drinking. Nonstop," he adds, in a lower voice because he never knew who was around. "I had to pull myself up from that."

 

Jared slides into the booth across from Jensen, letting Jensen take the orders for the both of them before he leans in against the table as if to urging Jensen to continue. 

 

"An' I'm talking... Liver-abusing numbers of drinks," he clarifies, lowering his gaze to a wet rim mark on the table that had missed being wiped down. "I spent so much time just being trashed, even blacking out and forgetting what happened. It was..." He hunches forward, his shoulders drawn in around himself like a mock turtle shell, like he's protecting himself. From criticism, maybe, or ... Judgment. But Jared's expression is cryptic. Not bad, but hard to read. For some reason, it pushes Jensen to continue. "My dad used to drink. He wasn't... Violent, not on most days, and even when he was he mostly went for my mom. She couldn't ... Wouldn't leave him, and I just..." He pushes his glasses up into his hair and scrubs his hand over his face, feeling defeated even as he recounts the experience. He'd been so fucking helpless back then. So helpless and _pathetic._

 

"You just...?" Jared prompts gently, and maybe it's the earnest curiosity on Jared's face or the fact that he's definitely been through some shit of his own, but Jensen finds himself telling his soulmate everything.

 

"I was just so useless," he admits, half into the palm of his hand so it's slightly muffled. "Just. Useless. Josh left for school- he didn't. He didn't want to abandon me or anything, I know why he did it- that house was just toxic, he got away as soon as he could. We talked every day, though, I mean... I was just so glad I had him, someone to talk to, someone who understood. Or ... I wouldn't. I don't know what would've happened to me. But yeah, anyway.." He blinks, shaking his head as if it'll clear away that darkness. It doesn't really- it's just a temporary solution. "I was stuck in that house for too long, Jay," he says quietly. "Too long. I took a year off and stayed even longer before going to the closest state college." His expression softens slightly as he darts a quick smile at Jared. "Best years of my life." 

 

Jared's entire body slumps, like he was waiting anxiously for Jensen to say that his life spiraled out of control in college. It's ... Actually really touching, and it unexpectedly makes Jensen smile. "It was amazing, Jay. It's where I met Dani and Chris." He curls his hands around Jared's on the table. "They were my pillars and all, kept me hanging on and let me crash at their places on the weekends when I didn't want to go back home. That's... Some of the worst guilt I have." He admits, holding on tightly to Jared's fingers. "Leaving my mom home with my drunk dad... Letting her deal with all of it, on her own. But I also lost some of my deep resentment with Josh, because I got it. I really got it, that feeling of being _free_ and leaving that household behind."

 

"But?" 

 

Jensen blinks, tilting his head questioningly, and Jared's got this expression on his face, that same expression of dread and worry that Jensen had seen before when they were waiting on Chad's verdict. "But?" 

 

"But... Something happened," Jared murmurs, glancing uncertainly at Jensen from underneath his eyelashes. "Because you said you started drinking, before you became a writer. So... If you don't mind me asking," he swallows, the bob of his throat almost audible. "What... happened?" 

 

He's perceptive, Jensen thinks abruptly, but it doesn't upset him. Jared's allowed to be curious, not just because Jensen's his soulmate. Everyone comes from different places; Jensen's luckier on most counts, but they've both had it pretty fucking rough at times. "Yeah... My dad passed away, from alcohol poisoning." 

 

Jared sucks in a hard breath, looking horrified. "Jensen, I-" 

 

"Don't." Jensen shakes his head, and there's just the dull ache of acceptance left over after all those nights abusing his own liver. "I don't miss him. I didn't... I don't think I've loved him for a long time. But I thought I did. And I thought I felt guilty, so for a long time I just... Drank. It helped quiet down all the-" He waved his hand. "All the yelling, the guilt, the.." He comes to a standstill as the plates are placed in front of them, waiting until the waitress had given them straws for their milkshakes and left before continuing. "Anyway... Dani and Chris tried to help me through it, but there was only one other thing I found joy in... And it was writing. And that's... Dani sent in a manuscript I never even considered sending in to one of her editor buddies, and. Yeah. Suddenly..." He smiles, wryly. "I'm a little famous." 

 

Jared smiles, but he looks like he's on the verge of tears. "Was... Your mom okay?" 

 

Once again, Jensen's touched. Nobody's ever asked how his mom was after all of this, mostly choosing to inundate Jensen with concerns and questions about his health. It's nice... "Yeah, she was fine. She was ... She took it hard, but in the long run, she realized it was better for her. She has ... a little shop that I bought for her, near the library, where she hires kids to sell crafts that she makes. It's out in the country. I'll show you some time... She'd love to meet you." 

 

Jared smiles at him, then leans in, that same, soft concern warm in his eyes. Like liquid.. "And are _you_ okay, now?" 

 

It's simple, but effective, and it makes Jensen smile, too. "I am now. Thanks," he adds, squeezing Jared's hands and appreciating not having to hear an influx of nosy questions. He knows Dani means well, but she's usually the culprit when it comes to questions, and Jared is a breath of fresh air in comparison. "So..."

 

"So, I owe you a bit of back story, too." Jared sighs, but he doesn't actually sound that upset or put-off. He also smiles, which is a good sign, but it quickly fades. "I know you're gonna say I don't have to do it now, but... If I don't, I may not work up the courage again," he whispers, picking at the meat of the burger. Jensen wants Jared to try the food, but he's also too curious to let Jared get away, mostly if the other is actually ready to say what he has to say. "So... It was different... A bit," Jared says, then laughs shortly. "Or a lot." 

 

"Yeah," Jensen laughs, too, but even to himself he sounds sad. "But it's okay... Different is okay." He strokes his fingers over Jay's knuckles. "Jared? I'm not gonna judge you.. For anything that happened to you. Swear to god," he promises, crossing his heart with his other hand as Jared swallows audibly again. 

 

"I loved my parents," he says, almost like a prelude, and Jensen's hold tightens slightly. That's the difference; both of them had lost family members, but Jared had loved his. Jensen felt like it was harder, it was harder when you were a loving, happy family, that's when the loss really settled in. "I really... They gave me everything I could've asked for. We were... A Hallmark family, we wore matching sweaters during Christmas a-and..." 

 

Jensen's skin prickles when he hears Jared's voice break, like his body can't handle the other's grief. "Jay..."

 

"It's okay," Jared whispers. "It's okay- Fine. It's okay... I've." He tears a tiny strip of skin off his finger with his teeth, agitated, and his knee knocks against the underside of the table anxiously. A rhythmic, ominous _th-thump_ that prepares Jensen for whatever Jared is about to say next. "I was twelve... When I was the only one in my family to walk out of that burning restaurant alive."

 

He gasps like his lungs are still filled with ash, and Jensen suddenly feels like the worst is yet to come. Their food cools on their plates as Jared trips his way into the harder parts, the .. stickier parts. 

 

"I waited for them to come out... Survivors kept coming out, kept... But I knew my parents were gone, I... I saw the roof crumble down, the smoke... A-And. There was... A man there." He says, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "I.. I was shaken, I didn't.. I thought maybe he was a cop in plainclothes, or off-duty. O-Or." His mouth moves for a second, wordless, before he picks up. "He took me away from the scene, to his apartment, and I should've ... I should have _realized_ but I was just. Devastated. He asked me what I saw... I told him- I th-thought he was... Well, you know, Someone I could trust. A-And I just. I was so stupid, I _told_ him everything... That my family was gone. And I didn't even remember telling him."

 

The story's taken a dark direction. Jensen's blood burns, then freezes, then burns again. His voice is a croak when he speaks. "Did you tell him that you were..."

 

"Stuck in the city? A different state with no way home?" Jared's words drip with something bitter, the liquid gold of his eyes darkening. "Yeah. He picked me up from the site of something traumatic, and I was so shaken that I told him... everything. Too much, too... I told him too much. He told me... He could get me a ticket home, a flight ticket back to Texas, back to my family. I didn't even..." His voice lowers to a whisper. "No phone, no family... Just him."

 

"What did he do?" To be honest, Jensen's not sure if he can handle the answer. But Jared seems to pick up on Jensen's trepidation, and even he seems reluctant, and he shakes his head.

 

"Not here..." Jared says, quietly. "A lot... Happened. Not all of it bad. Some of it _really.."_ He gulps, poking his straw into his wilting milkshake. "Really... Bad. But not here... Not now." He sucks through the straw, and his knees finally stop knocking as he slumps down.

 

Jensen places the feeling of his blood burning; it's fury. But he wrestles it down, because it's not... It's not his place. He doesn't ... He doesn't deserve to fawn over Jared, not yet. He still needs to earn that, but he'll get there, and when he does... 

 

"Okay," he says instead, and the corner of his mouth ticks upward as he leans in to squeeze Jared's hand. "Whenever you're ready, sweetheart," he says, the term of endearment rolling off his tongue almost naturally. It surprises both of them, but Jared doesn't seem to mind it, if his shy little smile is anything to go off of. 

 

"This milkshake is really good," Jared says instead, changing tracks as he drains the glass. He fishes for the cherry, trapping the stem between his fingers as he tucks it into his mouth, and Jensen's distracted for a moment as he watches the boy's lips wrap around it. "I've never had one before. This is strawberry, right?"

 

"Y... Yeah," Jensen clears his throat and picks up his burger. "It's strawberry. And you're not leaving this place until that burger goes down," he adds, mock-sternly as he takes a bite. Even at room temperature, it's fantastic, and Jared's expression tells him all he needs to know. "It's good, right?" he asks smugly, and he's rewarded by Jared's little moan of delight.

 

What's not rewarding is the flip his stomach does at the sound.

 

"So good," Jared whimpers, putting the food away all too quickly. "I forgot.. What it was like. This kind of, you know. Gourmet food..." He eats four, five fries in one go, and Jensen laughs.

 

"Slow down, tiger. It's not going to go anywhere. And we have time before we go to see Chad, so." 

 

Jared slows down, sobering up a little and nodding. "I know. I just.. Feel a little bad, you know? Scarfing all this food down when Sophia's out there, probably freaking out, and Chad's in the hospital, and..." He looks ashamed, now. "It's bad, isn't it? To ... Be living it up like this when those two are in pain...?"

 

"No." Jensen says, firmly. "No, because this type of thing isn't comparative. You're allowed to enjoy this, you're allowed to be happy in this moment. It won't help them if you're worried sick about them, all the time; they'd want you to be happy." 

 

This prompts a little smile from Jared, who rests his ankles against Jensen's. "Thanks, Jensen. For lunch a-and the job and everything. It finally feels like..." He bites his lip; it's sweet. "Do you think it's okay for me to say that it feels like things are... getting better?" 

 

"Yeah," Jensen can't help his own smile, now. "And they're going to keep getting better, I promise." 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Hi *waves*
> 
> Yeah, so I know it's been more than a year. This last year's been really difficult and I've been struggling with my own mental health. But I think I'm back now and the fandom (and all y'all) have been super good about it, so .. thank you :)


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